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The airport and airline systems research focuses on an issue of crucial importance to Portugal and many other countries around the world: deriving a coherent understanding of airports as systems. A specific research project, for example, aims to quantify the effects on airline and air transportation system performance and configuration of various proposed technologies and policies aimed at addressing airport congestion, including next-generation air traffic control systems, airport location and number, slot allocations, and congestion pricing.
Project: Implications of Congestion for the Configuration of Airport Networks and Airline Networks (AirNets) (November 2007 – December 2010)
Description: Most ongoing work on the implications of congestion for the configuration of airport networks and airline networks relies on qualitative approaches that posit sets of assumptions about future traffic conditions and then discuss the implications of these assumptions for the various air transportation stakeholders. By contrast, the objectives of the proposed project will be pursued through quantitative analyses that will utilize a new network model of two regional airport systems – one E.U.-wide and the other U.S.-wide – that combine mathematical optimization with a stochastic and dynamic queuing theory approach. Using these network models, the impacts of distribution of traffic among alternative types of airports and the incidence of delays on airlines and on passengers will be explored.
Objectives: The project is organized around the following specific objectives:
- Developing airport and airline network models incorporating access costs (landing fees, passenger taxes, and environmental charges) and delay costs, as well as constraints related to new air transportation policies and technologies
- Developing a stochastic and dynamic queuing model to compute detailed delay profiles and delay costs
- Applying the models to the E.U. and U.S. air transportation systems
Industry Involvement: Collaboration with industry, particularly airlines, will be sought for the assembly of input data and formulation of scenarios.
PT Faculty: Rosário Macário (IST), António Antunes (Coimbra)
MIT Faculty: Cynthia Barnhart , Amedeo Odoni
Student Researchers on this Project: Alda Mendes (Porto), João Pita (Coimbra)
Resources:
 Briefing on AirNets Project by Amedeo Odoni
Emerging Energy and Tech. Patterns in Air Transportation Systems and the Kondratieff’s Waves Theory, poster, Carlos Marques, MIT Portugal Program’s 1st Annual Conference, July 7, 2009.
Transportation Systems Research 2008 AirNets
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