Stability analysis for scheduled air traffic flow

PurposeModeling and system performance analysis play an important role in the planning of air traffic system. In particular, this paper aims to concentrate on the modeling and the performance evaluation of air transportation system. Design/methodology/approachIt has shown that system matrices inherent in the airspace network can be acquired based on the service times of flights. This paper deals with a logical modeling which can avoid temporal synchronization conflict of resources. As a result, a class of queuing system is investigated to obtain a representation of the airspace network dynamics using dioid model. FindingsThe analysis of the air traffic system is conducted by solving the system state model. This indicates that it is feasible to use eigenvalues of system model for acquiring characteristics of the considered air transport systems. Practical implicationsThe departure scheduling prototype presented in this paper can offer air traffic controller a decision support tool to build optimal departure sequences for aircraft. Originality/valueThe properties of max-plus algebra described allow us to apply linear algebra concepts like eigenvalue and eigenvectors to obtain a solution to the air traffic system being modeled. By solving and analyzing the dioid model, this paper evaluated some performance measures of airspace network.