Runway operations planning and control:: Sequencing and scheduling

The commercial aviation community has experienced a significant increase in the demand for air transportation over the past two decades. Despite the advent of new air traffic control (ATC) technologies, this increase in demand for air transportation has not been matched by an increase in capacity. Thus, because capacity/demand mismatches affect ATC airspace and ground operations, there has been a significant increase in delays during departure operations at major European and U.S. airports. The associated environmental impact and economic inefficiencies generate a growing need for the reduction of such delays. A framework and solution methodology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR), to develop automated decision-aiding systems to assist air traffic controllers in handling departure traffic and mitigating the adverse effects of ground congestion and delays is presented. A possible formulation of the runway operations planning problem is presented with objectives and constraints.