Investigating the effect on departure capacity of changing Target Off-Block Time uncertainty

Master thesis (2024)

Authors

D.C. Snijders Aerospace Engineering

Contributors

Joost Ellerbroek (supervisor 1)
J.M. Hoekstra (supervisor 2)
F Dijkstra Air Traffic Control The Netherlands (supervisor 2)
P.C. Roling Air Transport & Operations - Aerospace Engineering (supervisor 2)
Faculty
Aerospace Engineering
Copyright: © 2024 Daan Snijders
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Published Date

13-02-2024

Language

English

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Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Abstract

With its 500.000 flights per year, Schiphol Airport is one of the busiest airports in Europe. Efficient runway use is vital for a smooth day-to-day operation. This paper investigates the new runway scheduler at Schiphol Airport, also referred to as the Departure Manager (DMAN). The new DMAN is built for a better utilisation of the outbound capacity with a higher predictability. This study aims to verify whether positive behaviour regarding earlier Target Off-Block Time (TOBT) updates leads to the desired results in capacity, predictability and reduced delay, based on historical data. An experimental model was used to simulate a new Departure Manager (DMAN), which uses a set of priority rules to assign flights to the runway slot in which they depart. The simulation did not find an overall significant result for all cases, runways and months, due to the averages influenced by the size of the data. However, a positive trend can be seen in the presented results, indicating that earlier TOBT updates lead to a better runway schedule. One cannot schedule better than on time, but late TOBT updates accumulate like a snowball effect throughout the planning.