Abstract
Congestion in the European airspace calls for measures to make best use of the available capacity. The grouping and scheduling of sectors to minimize flight delays is one of these measures. This paper introduces the decision problem of grouping and scheduling air traffic control sectors and proposes a generic framework to represent the interactions between the air traffic sectors and the flight demands. The representation is a bipartite directed graph denoted as Sector-Flight Network (SFN) where two types of nodes are defined, the sector and the flight nodes. All the existing interactions between these two types of nodes are detailed in a simple and comprehensive form. Based on this representation a mathematical formulation is proposed to address the problem of grouping and scheduling Air-Traffic Control (ATC) sectors. The model provides the grouping and scheduling of sectors during a given time interval accounting for controller availability and sector capacity constraints so as to minimize flight delays. The possibility of optimizing the number of air traffic controllers is also considered. This approach leads to an integer programming model that is solved using a standard branch-and-bound method. The model is tested on two examples: a subset of French airspace and the Lisbon Area Control Center (ACC) airspace. Conclusions on the appropriateness of the model are taken and further improvements identified.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Andreatta, G., L. Brunetta, and G. Guastalla (2000). From ground holding to free flight: An exact approach. Transportation Science 34, 394–401.
Andreatta, G. and G. Romanin-Jacur (1987). Aircraft flow management under congestion. Transportation Science 21, 249–253.
Barbosa-Póvoa, A.P. and C.C. Pantelides (1997). Design of multipurpose batch plants using the resource-task network framework. Computers & Chemical Engineering 21S, S703–S708.
Bertsimas, D. and S. Stock (1998). The air traffic flow management problem with enroute capacities. Operations Research 46, 406–422.
Bianco, L. and M. Bielli (1993). Systems aspects and optimization models in ATC planning. In L. Bianco and A.R. Odoni (Eds.), Large-Scale Computation and Information Processing in Air Traffic Control, Springer, Berlin, 47–99.
CPLEX (1995). Using the CPLEX Callable Library, Version 4.0. CPLEX Optimization, Inc.
de Matos, P.L. and R. Ormerod (2000). The application of operational research to European air traffic flow management. European Journal of Operational Research 123, 125–144.
EUROCONTROL (1999). Special performance review report on delays (January-September 1999). In Performance Review Comission.
EUROCONTROL (2000a). Air traffic statistics and forecasts: Number of flights by region 1974-2015. In European Air Traffic Management Programme /Strategy Concept and System Unit — STATFOR.
EUROCONTROL (2000b). Delays in February 2000. CODA, http://www.eurocontrol.be.
Helme, M. (1992). Reducing air traffic delay in a space-time network. IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics 1, 236–242.
Lindsay, K., E.A. Boyd, and R. Burlingame (1993). Traffic flow management modeling with the time assignment model. Air Traffic Control Quarterly 1, 255–276.
Nachtigall, K. (2000). Luftverkehrssteuerung in Europa. In J.R. Daduna and S. Voß (Eds.), Informationsmanagement im Verkehr, Physica, Heidelberg, 145–165.
Navazio, L. and G. Romanin-Jacur (1998). The multiple connections, multiairport ground holding problem: Models and algorithms. Transportation Science 32, 268–276.
Odoni, A.R. (1987). The flow management problem in air traffic control. In A.R. Odoni, L. Bianco, and G. Szegö (Eds.), Flow Control of Congested Networks, NATO A S I Series, Series F: Computer and Systems Science, 38, Springer, Berlin, 269–288.
Odoni, A.R. (1994). Issues in air traffic flow management. In Proceedings of Conference on Advanced Technologies for Air Traffic Flow Management, Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Luft-und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Bonn.
Pantelides, C.C. (1994). Unified frameworks for optimal process planning and scheduling. In D.W.T. Rippin and J. Hale (Eds.), Proc. 2nd Conf. Foundations of Computer-Aided Operations, CACHE Publications, 253–274.
Richetta, O. (1995). Optimal algorithms and a remarkably efficient heuristic for the ground-holding problem in air traffic control. Operations Research 43, 758–770.
Richetta, O. and A.R. Odoni (1993). Solving optimally the static groundholding policy problem in air traffic control. Transportation Science 27, 228–238.
Terrab, M. and A.R. Odoni (1993). Strategic flow management for air traffic control. Operations Research 41, 138–152.
Tošic, V., O. Babic, M. Cangalovic, and D. Hohlacov (1995). Some models and algorithms for en route air traffic flow management. Transportation Planning and Technology 19(2), 147–164.
Vranas, P.B.M. (1996). Optimal slot allocation for European air traffic flow management. Air Traffic Control Quarterly 4, 249–280.
Vranas, P.B.M., D.J. Bertsimas, and A.R. Odoni (1994a). Dynamic groundholding policies for a network of airports. Transportation Science 28, 275–291.
Vranas, P.B.M., D.J. Bertsimas, and A.R. Odoni (1994b). The multi-airport ground-holding problem in air traffic control. Operations Research 42, 249–261.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Paula Barbosa-Póvoa, A., de Matos, P.L., Rocha, L. (2001). Optimization Approach to Support the Grouping and Scheduling of Air Traffic Control Sectors. In: Voß, S., Daduna, J.R. (eds) Computer-Aided Scheduling of Public Transport. Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, vol 505. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-56423-9_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-56423-9_22
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-42243-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-56423-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive