A novel machine learning model to predict abnormal Runway Occupancy Times and observe related precursors

Abstract

Accidents on the runway triggered the development and implementation of mitigation strategies. Therefore, the airline industry is moving toward proactive risk management, which aims to identify and predict risk percursors and to mitigate risks before accidents occur. For certain predictions Machine Learning techniques can be used. Although many studies have explored and applied novel Machine Learning techniques on different aircraft Radar and operational Taxi data, the identification and prediction of abnormal Runway Occupancy Times and the observation of related percursors are not well developed. In our previous papers, three feasible methods were introduced: Lasso, Multi-Layer Perceptiona and Neural Networks to predict the Taxi-Out Time on the taxiway and the time to Fly and True Airspeed profile on final approach. This paper presents a new Machine Learing method, where we merge these feasible Machine Learning techniques for prediction the abnormal Runway Occupancy times of unique radar data patterns. Additionally we use in this study the Regression Tree method to observe key related precursors extracted from the top 10 features. Compared with existing methods, the new method no longer requires predefined criteria or domain knowledge. Tests were conductioned using runway and final approach aircraft radar data consisting of 78,321 Charles de Gaulle flights and were benchmarked against 500,000 Vienna flights.