Advanced National Airspace traffic flow management simulation experiments and validation

Abstract

Traffic flow management in the National Airspace is an important problem in our air transportation system. We have developed ProbTFM, a traffic flow management evaluation platform and algorithmic solution. ProbTFM works with existing traffic flow management tools and provides probabilistic data modeling and decision making. ProbTFM forecasts airport and airspace capacity and demand; and airport, airspace, and route congestion. ProbTFM creates a list of high congestion, critical flights and recommends delays or reroutes for specific flights. ProbTFM can be used as an evaluation platform for advanced traffic flow management concepts, and to model today's National Airspace System. In this paper we report on validation results and how ProbTFM can be used to understand operational tradeoffs and inform policy decisions.