1,720,996 research outputs found
A systematic approach to assess the effectiveness of airport noise mitigation strategies
No full textRegional airports are often located very close to the urban area they serve and the increasing traffic rate that many of them have experienced in the last years has produced several impacts on the communities living close to the airport area, mainly aviation noise. If not properly managed, noise impacts produced by airport operations can cut down significantly the development of airport air traffic with direct effects on the economic and territorial systems. Aeronautical noise has greatly reduced in the last decade, due to aircraft design technological improvements and more severe regulations. However, the noise reduction during a single event does not make the issue of the airport location – and then the whole noise impact – less significant. This paper proposes an assessment process to evaluate the effects of actions adopted to reduce airport noise impacts on populated areas. Both airport-related factors – such as number of take-off; day-evening-night distributions of movements; aircraft type; flying paths – and land-use characteristics have been considered and combined in a density index that synthesizes the impacts of airport noise on the territory. The assessment process has been tested on a real case, the airport of Bologna in Northern Italy. The predicted results, compared with available real data for the test case, are significant and encourage the use of the proposed assessment process as decision support system for the airport management
A methodological framework to evaluate the impact of disruptions on airport turnaround operations: a case study
Full text linkThe efficiency and quality of airport airside operations are frequently compromised by various, unexpected
disruptive events such as bad weather conditions, lack of handling staff and/or resources, strikes, aircraft diversions
or technical failures, which may reduce airport airside operating capacity and affect the punctuality and
regularity of the operations. In particular, disruptive events could lead to a substantial deviation of aircraft
operations from the schedule, by causing the reduction of the system capacity and, thus, increasing congestion
and flight delays, which worsen the overall performance of the air transport system. In this paper, the effects of
unexpected events, particularly magnitude and duration, affecting airport airside operations are estimated
within a general framework based on an element-by-element approach, adopted for the detailed representation
and simulation of aircraft airside operations. The impacts generated by airport airside unexpected disruptions
are modelled by using a discrete-event simulation model, dealing with both aircraft landing-and-takeoff (LTO)
cycles and turnaround operations, developed and applied to the test case of a large regional airport
Impacts of unplanned aircraft diversions on airport ground operations
Full text linkWhen an unplanned disruption causes the temporary closure of an airport, incoming flights are re-routed to one (or more) nearby ones. As a consequence, traffic in the alternate airport increases and the efficiency, punctuality and regularity of operations may be compromised. The purpose of this work is to determine the impacts on the alternate airport airside operations due to the presence of diverted flights. If the number of aircraft to be serviced increases, ground handling operators are subjected to an additional workload, probably resulting in delayed departures and knock-on delays. A discrete-event simulation model of both aircraft landing-and-takeoff (LTO) cycles and turnaround operations is built by using AnyLogic. The model is applied to the case study of Lisbon "Humberto Delgado" airport. When the number of incoming flights increases upon a certain threshold, departure delays spread over the day, which should call for emergency actions and contingency plans
Airport Passenger Arrival Process: Estimation of Earliness Arrival Functions
No full textAirport terminals are complex nodes where passengers are processed under limited capacity conditions. Congestion problems and delays are likely to occur, with negative impacts on customer satisfaction. To keep high quality levels, the knowledge of passengers' arrival patterns is a key factor. In this study, a methodology based on the use of Bar Coded Boarding Pass (BCBP) technologies has been proposed to estimate arrival rate functions for different types of passengers (Low Cost and Full Carrier passengers) and time of the day. The results obtained for a test case have been analysed and discussed
Three-Dimensional Urban Air Networks for Future Urban Air Transport Systems
Full text linkAdvances in new electric aerial vehicles have encouraged research on pioneering Urban Air Mobility (UAM) solutions, which would provide fast service for passengers, goods, and emergencies. From this perspective, some air service scenarios have been identified, such as air taxis, airport shuttles, and intercity services. Such air services should be supported by a suitable urban air network, which should comply with several boundary conditions linked to the specific features of this new type of aerial mobility. This paper proposes an Urban Air Network (UAN) model that includes a third (vertical) dimension and whose aim is to satisfy the basic principle of linking origin/destination pairs, as in usual ground transportation networks, by guaranteeing at the same time safe aerial paths between origin/destination pairs with suitable vehicle separations. The proposed UAN consists of multiple 2D graphs on different layers, which allows for the transfer of aerial vehicles in lower airspace. A suitable cost function has been associated with each UAN link in order to compute the shortest paths connecting the origin/destination pairs. The links in a UAN have a dynamic nature and can be enabled or disabled in consideration of capacity issues. In addition, indirect CO2 emissions linked to aerial vehicles (such as operational and disposal phase charges) have been computed to foresee the potential environmental impacts based on the proposed UAN model. The preliminary results of a test case show encouraging results and provide interesting findings for further advancements
Using Reputation Scores to Foster Car-Sharing Activities
Full text linkIn the near future, the growth of personal mobility is expected to continue all over the world and to cause impacts such as increased levels of traffic congestion and worsened quality of life, mainly in highly populated urban areas. Alternative solutions for individual mobility have been promoted to dissuade people from using private cars. Particularly, renting private vehicles scarcely used by their owners would result in several benefits, including environmental ones, and traffic reduction. This type of solution, based on the willingness of individuals to rent their own vehicles, is called Peer-to-Peer Car-Sharing (P2P-CS). This study proposes a methodological approach focused on the adoption of both a reputation system and blockchain technology to support P2P-CS activities. Reputation scores are introduced to meet CS actors’ expectations of dealing with trusted partners, by allowing both access to service and the opportunity to customize CS fares, while the blockchain makes reputation scores publicly accessible and unchangeable and allows the P2P-CS transport solution to be managed without third parties. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been verified by several tests carried out on real and simulated data. The obtained results are satisfactory and encourage the adoption of these further sustainable travel mode opportunities
A New Approach to Assessing Transport Network Resilience
Full text linkExternal events, as well as internal traffic flow conditions, can impact the performance of one or more infrastructure elements of a transportation network, potentially affecting the resilience of the system. This paper proposes an innovative approach to integrate key aspects of land use and infrastructure into the supply model of the road transportation system. Specifically, the concept of “augmented link” is introduced, which aims to include exogenous characteristics (e.g., referring to land use and/or infrastructure) into the transportation network model to assess network resilience and ensure optimal network performance, even under emergency conditions. The objective is to identify links that are most likely to experience critical failures within the road network by considering both external events and traffic flows affecting each link. The proposed approach was applied to a simulated test case. The obtained results are encouraging and showed the great potential of the proposed approach to identify a priori reliable routes under emergency conditions
Airport Ground Access Reliability and Resilience of Transit Networks: A Case Study
No full textAirport ground access is one of the key determinants influencing air travellers' airport choice. The continuous growth of air travel demand and the consequent induced road congestion have encouraged the development of efficient transit systems approaching the airport, thus promoting a modal shift from individual cars to greener transport alternatives. In addition, transit systems must be resilient and reliable to air travellers, since the cost of missing a flight is high. In this paper, resilience aspects of transit systems accessing airport areas are discussed and some indexes have been set up to estimate the transit network resilience. Three different transit systems to get to a large regional Italian airport (Automated People Mover, Airport Shuttle Bus, Bus Line) are modelled and the system resilience has been estimated for each scenario by using the proposed indexes
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