Scalability of the Air Transportation System and Development of Multi-Airport Systems

442 Pages·2008·9.83 MB·English

Scalability of the Air Transportation System and
Development of Multi-Airport Systems: A Worldwide Perspective

by

Philippe A. Bonnefoy

B. Ing., Mechanical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada, 2002
S.M., Aeronautics & Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005

Submitted to the engineering systems division
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
at the
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

June 2008

2008 Philippe A. Bonnefoy, All rights reserved.

The author hereby grants to MIT the permission to reproduce
and to distribute publicly paper and electronic
copies of this thesis document in whole or in part.

Signature of Author: ______________________________________________________
Philippe A. Bonnefoy
Engineering Systems Division
May 30th 2008
Certified by: _____________________________________________________________
R. John Hansman, Professor
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems
Thesis Supervisor
Certified by: _____________________________________________________________
Cynthia Barnhart, Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems
Certified by: _____________________________________________________________
Richard de Neufville, Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems
Certified by: _____________________________________________________________
Amedeo Odoni, Professor
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Civil and Environmental Engineering
Accepted by: ____________________________________________________________
Richard Larson, Professor
Engineering Systems Division
Chair, Engineering Systems Division Education Committee
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SCALABILITY OF THE AIR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM AND
DEVELOPMENT OF MULTI-AIRPORT SYSTEMS:
A WORLDWIDE PERSPECTIVE

by

Philippe A. Bonnefoy

Submitted to the Engineering Systems Division
on May 30th 2008 in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Degree of
Doctor in Philosophy in Engineering Systems

A
BSTRACT
Wi th the growing demand for air transportation and the limited ability to increase
capacity at some key points in the air transportation system, there are concerns that
in the future the system will not scale to meet demand. This situation will result in the
generation and the propagation of delays throughout the system, impacting passengers’
quality of travel and more broadly the economy. This thesis proposes the investigation of
the mechanisms by which the air transportation system has scaled to meet demand in the
past and is expected to do so in the future using a multi-level engineering systems
approach.
The air transportation system was first analyzed at the U.S. national level using
network abstractions. In order to investigate limits in scaling of the U.S. air transportation
network, theories of scale-free and scalable networks were used. It was found that the
U.S. air transportation network was not scale-free due to capacity constraints at major
airports, also preventing it from being scalable. However, the construction and analysis of
a new network for which sets of two or more significant airports that serve passenger
traffic in a metropolitan region (i.e. multi-airport systems) were aggregated into single
nodes showed that it was scale-free and scalable. These results were also supported by a
time series analysis of airport and multi-airport system growth. These analyses
demonstrated the importance of regional level scaling mechanisms (i.e. development of
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multi-airport systems) in the ability of the air transportation system to adapt and scale to
meet demand.
Given the importance of multi-airport systems, an in-depth multiple-case study
analysis of 59 multi-airport systems worldwide was performed. This analysis was used to
develop a feedback model that captures the fundamental processes that govern the
evolution of multi-airport systems.
Multi-airport systems were found to evolve according to two fundamental
mechanisms: (1) the construction of new airports and (2) the emergence of secondary
airports through the use of existing non-utilized airports. Several differences and
similarities in the occurrence of these dynamics were identified across world regions. It
was found that in the United States and Europe, the construction of new large airports
occurred prior to or during World War II and to a minor extent during the 1960s and
1970s. More recently, significant limitations to the development of new airports (e.g.
opposition from local communities) and changes in the airline industry (e.g. emergence
and growth of low-cost carriers) led multi-airport systems in the United States and
Europe to evolve through the emergence of secondary airports. In the Asia-Pacific region,
multi-airport systems have predominantly evolved through the construction of new
airports, due to fewer available airports, high projections of demand and weaker
opposition to the construction of airports.
The analyses and insights from this thesis were also used to analyze and better
understand the evolution of future multi-airport systems and provide recommendations
for infrastructure management policies and multi-airport system development strategies.
In the United States and in Europe, there is the need to protect non-utilized exiting
airport infrastructure (both civil and military airports) that can later be used to
accommodate demand through the emergence of secondary airports. In parts of Asia
where the existing under-utilized airport infrastructure is weak and where projections of
high volume of demand -with high uncertainty- are high, there is the need to apply a
dynamic approach to develop multi-airport systems. This approach includes actions such
as reserving land area for future airport development and keeping original airports open
since this option has proven to be useful and successful in the other regions of the world
(i.e. United States and Europe). In some parts of Asia, such as India, where the military
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airport infrastructure is more developed than in other parts, there is also the need, as in
the United States and Europe, to protect these airports since they may become future
secondary airports following the airport status conversion dynamics that were observed in
Europe.

Doctoral Committee:

R. John Hansman (Thesis Supervisor)
Title: Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics and Engineering Systems

Cynthia Barnhart
Title: Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems

Richard de Neufville
Title: Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems

Amedeo Odoni
Title: Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Civil and Environmental
Engineering

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A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, sincerest thanks to my research advisor Professor R. John Hansman for
giving me the opportunity to work with and learn from him throughout the course of my
research journey at MIT.
I also wish to thank my other doctoral committee members; Professor Cynthia
Barnhart, Professor Richard de Neufville and Professor Amedeo Odoni from MIT for
sharing their incredible knowledge and experience and for their valuable insights and
feedback.
Thank you to the sponsors of my research; the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
I wish to thank Prof. Alexandre Bayen from Berkeley University for his help in
accessing ETMS data and Dr. Alexander Zock from the European Center for Aviation
Development (ECAD) in Darmstadt, Germany for sharing insights into the European
perspective of this research topic and OAG data.
Thanks also to my colleagues and friends from the MIT International Center for Air
Transportation for their feedback on my research and their much appreciated
collaboration and friendship over the years, including Richard Cleaz-Savoyen, Jonathan
Histon, Masha Ishutkina, Aleksandra Mozdzanowska, Tom & Hayley Reynolds,
Laurence Vigeant-Langlois and Roland Weibel.
On a more personal level, I wish to thank my cello teacher, Professor Arnold
Friedman, for his understanding and patience in accommodating my busy PhD schedule
during the last three years and for allowing me to think about and work on different
scales than air transportation system scales.
Greatest thanks of all go to my family. To my parents, Bernard and Claude, and to
my siblings, Alexandra and Jean-Charles, for their continuing encouragements, help and
support throughout all these years. Sincerest thanks to Noëlly and Patrick. Finally, my
deepest thanks go to my wife, Emilie, for always supporting and believing in me!

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T C
ABLE OF ONTENTS
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................7
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................................................................9
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................15
LIST OF TABLES .....................................................................................................................23
ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................25
KEY DEFINITIONS ..................................................................................................................27
1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................29
1.1 MOTIVATION ............................................................................................................29
1.2 DEFINITION OF THE PROBLEM ...................................................................................32
1.2.1 Delay homeostasis ................................................................................................................ 33
1.2.2 Demand management............................................................................................................ 33
1.2.3 Scaling mechanisms .............................................................................................................. 34
1.2.4 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 43
1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ............................................................................................44
1.4 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS ...........................................................................................44
2 BACKGROUND ON THE AIR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM ................................................45
2.1 CONCEPTUAL DESCRIPTION OF THE AIR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM ........................45
2.1.1 High level description of the system ..................................................................................... 45
2.1.2 System decomposition .......................................................................................................... 46
2.2 THE GLOBAL AIR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM ..........................................................48
2.2.1 Distribution and evolution of passenger traffic ..................................................................... 48
2.2.2 Aircraft fleet and flight network ........................................................................................... 49
2.2.3 Airport infrastructure ............................................................................................................ 51
2.3 THE U.S. AIR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM ................................................................53
2.3.1 Distribution and evolution of passenger traffic ..................................................................... 53
2.3.2 Aircraft fleet and flight network ........................................................................................... 54
2.3.3 Airport infrastructure ............................................................................................................ 57
2.3.4 Airport congestion problem and delays ................................................................................ 59
3 RELATED WORK ..............................................................................................................65
3.1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................65
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3.2 LITERATURE REVIEW ON THE SCALABILITY OF SYSTEMS .........................................65
3.2.1 Scalability of “simple” systems ............................................................................................ 66
3.2.2 Scalability of complex systems ............................................................................................. 66
3.2.3 Scalability of the air transportation system ........................................................................... 67
3.3 SCALE-FREE AND SCALABLE NETWORKS: THEORY AND MODELS ............................67
3.3.1 General theory of complex networks .................................................................................... 67
3.3.2 Scale-free networks ............................................................................................................... 68
3.3.3 Evolution of complex networks: Underlying fundamental mechanisms and models ........... 72
3.3.4 Network analysis in the context of the air transportation system .......................................... 73
3.4 LITERATURE REVIEW ON MULTI-AIRPORT SYSTEMS................................................74
3.4.1 Definitions ............................................................................................................................ 74
3.4.2 Development of multi-airport systems .................................................................................. 74
3.4.3 Modeling passenger traffic distribution in multi-airport systems ......................................... 75
4 APPROACH .......................................................................................................................77
4.1 OVERVIEW OF THE APPROACH ..................................................................................77
4.1.1 Multi-level analysis of the system ........................................................................................ 77
4.1.2 Holistic view of the system ................................................................................................... 79
4.2 DETAILED APPROACH ...............................................................................................80
4.2.1 Network theory based investigation of the scalability of the air transportation system ........ 80
4.2.2 Multiple-case study analysis of multi-airport systems .......................................................... 81
4.2.3 Development of a feedback model ........................................................................................ 81
5 NETWORK THEORY BASED INVESTIGATION OF THE SCALABILITY OF THE AIR
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM ...................................................................................................83
5.1 CROSS-SECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE U.S. AIR TRANSPORTATION NETWORK .........83
5.1.1 Data sources and methodology ............................................................................................. 83
5.1.2 Airport level cross-sectional analysis of the U.S. air transportation network ....................... 86
5.1.3 Regional level cross-sectional analysis of the U.S. air transportation network .................... 93
5.2 TIME SERIES ANALYSIS OF THE U.S. AIR TRANSPORTATION NETWORK ...................99
5.2.1 Data sources and methodology ............................................................................................. 99
5.2.2 Airport level time series analysis of the U.S. air transportation network ............................ 100
5.2.3 Regional level time series analysis of the U.S. air transportation network ......................... 102
5.2.4 Regression and statistical analyses ..................................................................................... 105
5.3 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................110
6 MULTI-AIRPORT SYSTEMS WORLDWIDE .....................................................................111
6.1 DATA AND METHODOLOGY FOR IDENTIFYING MULTI-AIRPORT SYSTEMS .............111
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