Adaptive and Interpretable Speed Control Rules for En Route Arrival Management Using Extended Learning Classifier System

Air-transport infrastructure is facing increasing congestion, necessitating innovative approaches to optimize arrival management and minimize delays near airports. To address this issue, this study developed an en route arrival management framework that employs a learning classifier system (LCS) to reduce arrival delays and fuel consumption by generating adaptive and interpretable speed-control rules. A virtual design database, created from multiobjective optimization and integrated with a cellular automaton (CA)-based air-traffic model, facilitates the development of these rules. Within this database, a binary target variable represents speed-control decisions, whereas explanatory variables encompass factors such as aircraft proximity and congestion levels. The LCS is trained on this dataset to generate speed-control rules, and their effectiveness is evaluated through CA-based traffic simulations. The results indicate that the LCS achieved 96.8% accuracy in predicting appropriate speed-control actions, significantly outperforming traditional decision-tree methods (70.5% accuracy). Furthermore, experimental findings demonstrate reductions in average flight times by 10–20 s and up to 5 fewer spacing adjustments for traffic within 600 s before and after the arrival of speed-controlled flights. Overall, the LCS reduced total flight time by 1,801 s and total fuel consumption by 1,650.1 kg per operational cycle, resulting in an estimated annual cost savings of 466,000. Furthermore, the LCS approach successfully extracts both sector-specific and common rules, offering enhanced adaptability to various traffic scenarios. These results suggest that the ability to generalize rules across different airspace sectors can improve the safety and efficiency of air-traffic management.