GDP Deliverable

Implementation of the ground delay program

31/05/2013 Yanik Lacroix Joaquim Villn

Index
Executive summary .................................................................................................................. 3 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 4 Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 5 Calculating aggregated demand .......................................................................................... 5 Computing slots ................................................................................................................... 5 Computing aircrafts status .................................................................................................. 6 Assigning slots ...................................................................................................................... 6 Plotting histograms .............................................................................................................. 6 Results and Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 7 Change Hour Definition........................................................................................................ 9 Change Exclusions Radius ................................................................................................... 9 Final Results ....................................................................................................................... 11 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 13

Executive summary
In this project a Ground Delay Program will be applied to an airport, in a determinate period of time. The Ground Delay Program is applied when the capacity of the airport is reduced due to meteorological effects (fog for example) or any other phenomenon that disturb the airport activity. This phenomenon can be predicted, but sometimes with no enough time. The aim of the Ground Delay Program is to apply delays on aircrafts to let the airport absorb all the capacity that its able and to minimize the delay. It will also considered that ground holding its better than air holding. At the end of the project a period of time with low capacity will be given to the program and the regulation for all aircraft affected will be computed to the time when the capacity returns to the normal value.

Introduction

The Ground Delay Program will be applied to a data of aircraft arriving to an airport, every aircraft have an ETA (Estimated Arrival Time), this is very important to know because is the time which is the base to make all regulation, is the time that and aircraft is expected to arrive at the airport. With this information the program will be able to know which aircrafts are affected by the regulation. The start time and end time of capacity reduction are the boundaries of low capacity, is the interval of time where the low capacity is needed due to a meteorological effect or any other airport problem. Its also important to know that the regulation will not finish at the end of capacity reduction, it will finish when the airport functions are totally reestablished. It means that the end of regulation time will be when no more aircraft have delay, when the whole aircrafts functions are the same at ETA. When the regulation is applied and the delay is applied to every aircraft that need it the time is reflected in the CTA (controlled arrival time). All the file of time are in Unix Time ,is a system for describing instances in time, defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), 1 January 1970, not counting leap seconds.

Methodology
This project has been divided in several small parts: Calculating the aggregated demand. Computing the slots. Computing aircrafts status. Assigning slots. Computing CTA. Plotting histograms.

Calculating aggregated demand

First of all when a GDP is being designed all what is known is the hour when the reduced capacity starts and when it ends. But when the reduced capacity ends it does not mean that the GDP has ended because there are some planes that have not landed already, this is because during the GDP the reduced capacity has been lower than the aggregated demand. Aggregated demand will be obtained plotting how many aircrafts have arrived since one determined time in each time. The main aim of this part is to get when the GDP ends so when is the hour of no regulation. This will be obtained calculating the capacity with the GDP and the aggregated demand each moment and when theyre equal this will be the time when no regulation is required. Once the time of no regulation is calculated the next step will be approximating all the delay needed by obtaining the area that there is between the aggregated demand and the restricted capacity.

Computing slots
Defining a GDP means create some slots because all the aircrafts cant land when it is desired. So in this part of the project the slots are created. These slots are the time when each aircraft will be allowed to land. To calculate this, a slot will be created each x minutes, where x is the time that will take to one aircraft land with the capacity in that moment. For example if in that moment the capacity is 30 aircrafts per hour, x will be equal to 2 because only one aircraft can land every 2 minutes.

Computing aircrafts status

Every aircraft have a status and its needed to ordinate them. The first distinction that is needed to do is if the aircraft is affected by the GDP or not affected by the GDP, it means if its ETA is between start reduction capacity and end reduction capacity time. When this distinction is done, only the affected aircrafts are those are needed. With the affected aircrafts, some aircrafts can be excluded due to Radius (they are so far, so have priority), international (international flights) or flying (they are already flying so they cant make ground holding). When all those aircrafts are excluded there are only controlled aircrafts.

Assigning slots
To assign the slots the first aircrafts considerate are those who are excluded, they have priority because they cant make ground holding. So first we every excluded aircraft to the nearest slot after his ETA and when all excluded aircraft have slot the controlled aircrafts are assigned to a slot with the same method of excluded aircraft. Its important to know that excluded aircraft will make air holding, so the waiting time has to be minus than controlled aircraft that will make a ground holding.

Plotting histograms
A good way to prove if the procedure explained above works as it is desired two bar-plots are done, one with the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) and another with the Controlled Time of Arrival (CTA). This is done by calculating how many aircrafts have their CTA or CTA in that determined hour.

Results and Conclusions

GDP will be applied following the methodology explained before, for a reduction of capacity from AAR of 60 aircrafts/hour reduced to 30 aircraft/hour due to a problem in airport, from 15:59 to 18:30 the aggregated demand is reflected in Picture 1, red line represents the reduction of capacity and green line, with normal capacity the recuperation from 18:30 (end of problem) to 19:21 in this case (no more regulation needed time).

Picture 1 Aggregated Demand

The total aircrafts affected the different types of affection and the controlled aircrafts are shown in the Table 1:

Controlled Aircrafts

Excluded Aircrafts

Excluded Aircrafts By Ratio

Excluded International Aircrafts 9

Excluded Flying Aircrafts 29

62

64

47
Table 1: Aircrafts Affected

Applying the required delay to each aircraft and assigning them the nearest slot that they can have, taking in account the priority of the slots with the ground holding and air holding the ETA and CTA comparison obtained are those plotted in Picture 2.

Picture 2: ETA and CTA comparison after regulation applied

It can be seen in Picture 2 that the regulation applied in Picture 1 (Red Line) the aircrafts capacity in that period of time dont pass the red line and all aircrafts that delay was applied were moved to the right side, after low capacity period. As it can be seen in picture 3 the region affected with GDP Its selected and plotted only the times affected with the program. Calculating the means of Ground Delay and Air Delay the results obtained are that the excluded aircrafts will wait a mean of 2.84 minutes so its not big delay, but the ground delay will be 43.54 minutes of mean. So the regulation principally affects to the aircrafts that are in ground and its cheaper to absorb ground delay than air delay, so the regulation has been successfully made. The parameters of regulation can also be changed and look how it affects to the regulation program, radius will be changed to see what effects it have.

Change Hour Definition

Changing the hour of definition of the Ground Delay Program it can be seen that the Ground Delay and Holding Delay change. If the GDP is applied far time before the GDP Hstart the Ground Delay will be high and the Holding Delay will be low. If the Hdefinition is changed and difference between Hstart and Hdefinition is lower the Ground Delay decreases exponentially and Holding delay increase exponentially too as it can be seen in Picture 3.

Picture 3: Time of Hdef-Delay

In conclusion the optimums time to apply Hour Definition its at the end of the constant zone, because it has to be applied when the Ground Delay is maximum, and it may be applied with the nearest time to Hour Start because the probability of the phenomenon that cause GDP will be higher in less time, so the optimums time its at 12h30.

Change Exclusions Radius

Changing the exclusions radius of exclusion of aircrafts the ground and holding delay also changes. It can be seen that with a big radius of exclusion all the delay caused by radius exclusion is made on ground because no aircrafts are excluded by radius. If the radius of exclusion is decreased it can be seen in Picture 4 that ground delay decreases and holding 9

delay increase exponentially. The best exclusion radius is the one with higher ground delay when the exponential ends, because is a point when the radius is increased the reduction of holding delay is minimum. So the best radius is 1000km.

Picture 4: Exclusion Radius - Delay

The airport studied is San Francisco Airport, with an exclusion radius of 1000km the region affected can be seen in Picture 5.

Picture 5: San Francisco Optimums exclusion radius

10

Final Results
The program had found the best radius and the best hour of definition for the Ground Delay Program. With those optimal dates the program will recomputed the whole GDP and see how it affects it compare it with the first simulation made. The first one was with parameters of radius and hour definition taken approximately.

Controlled Aircrafts

Excluded Aircrafts

Excluded Aircrafts By Ratio

Excluded International Aircrafts 9

Excluded Flying Aircrafts 15

67

59

50
Table 2: Controlled-Excluded Aircrafts

As it can be seen in table 2, comparing it with table 1 the number of controlled aircraft increase, but not much and the excluded by ratio and excluded flying decrease, this is cause of reducing excluding radius and changing the definition time. The mean of Ground Delay is 21.3 min so a considerable reduction of delay has been reached. The mean Holding Delay is 1.57 min so both delays have been reduced.

Picture 6: ETA and RTA

In Picture 6 the ETA and RTA of the period of GDP have been plotted with the aim to see how the aircrafts that have a delay applied have been moved after GDP region and in the GDP region the airport cannot absorb more than 30 aircraft/hour.

11

Picture 7: ETA and CTA of final results

12

Bibliography
Delgado L., (2013), Ground Delay Program [Power Points slides]. Delgado L., (2013), Ground Delay Program 2[Power Points slides].

13

14