Modeling and control of airport queueing dynamics under severe flow restrictions

Based on field observations and interviews with controllers at Boston-Logan Airport and Newark Airport (EWR), we identify the closure of local departure fixes as the most severe class of airport departure restrictions. A set of simple queueing dynamics and "traffic rules" are developed to model departure traffic under such restrictions. The validity of the proposed model is tested via Monte Carlo simulation against 10 hours of actual operations data collected during a case-study at EWR on June 29, 2000. In general, the model successfully reproduces the aggregate departure congestion. An analysis of the average error over 40 simulation runs indicates that flow-rate restrictions also significantly impact departure traffic; work is underway to capture these effects. Several applications and "what-if" scenarios are discussed for future evaluation using the calibrated model.