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Equitable and Efficient Coordination in Traffic Flow Management

Author

Listed:
  • Cynthia Barnhart

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139)

  • Dimitris Bertsimas

    (Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139)

  • Constantine Caramanis

    (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712)

  • Douglas Fearing

    (Operations Research Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139)

Abstract

When air traffic demand is projected to exceed capacity, the Federal Aviation Administration implements traffic flow management (TFM) programs. Independently, these programs maintain a first-scheduled, first-served invariant, which is the accepted standard of fairness within the industry. Coordinating conflicting programs requires a careful balance between equity and efficiency. In our work, we first develop a fairness metric to measure deviation from first-scheduled, first-served in the presence of conflicts. Next, we develop an integer programming formulation that attempts to directly minimize this metric. We further develop an exponential penalty approach and show that its computational performance is far superior and its tradeoff between delay and fairness compares favorably. In our results, we demonstrate the effectiveness of these models using historical and hypothetical scenarios. Additionally, we demonstrate that the exponential penalty approach exhibits exceptional computational performance, implying practical viability. Our results suggest that this approach could lead to system-wide savings on the order of $25 to $50 million per year.

Suggested Citation

  • Cynthia Barnhart & Dimitris Bertsimas & Constantine Caramanis & Douglas Fearing, 2012. "Equitable and Efficient Coordination in Traffic Flow Management," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 262-280, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:46:y:2012:i:2:p:262-280
    DOI: 10.1287/trsc.1110.0393
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Bolić, Tatjana & Castelli, Lorenzo & Corolli, Luca & Rigonat, Desirée, 2017. "Reducing ATFM delays through strategic flight planning," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 42-59.
    2. Gillen, David & Jacquillat, Alexandre & Odoni, Amedeo R., 2016. "Airport demand management: The operations research and economics perspectives and potential synergies," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 495-513.
    3. Samà, Marcella & D’Ariano, Andrea & D’Ariano, Paolo & Pacciarelli, Dario, 2017. "Scheduling models for optimal aircraft traffic control at busy airports: Tardiness, priorities, equity and violations considerations," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 81-98.
    4. Alexandre Jacquillat & Amedeo R. Odoni, 2015. "An Integrated Scheduling and Operations Approach to Airport Congestion Mitigation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1390-1410, December.
    5. Jamie Fairbrother & Konstantinos G. Zografos & Kevin D. Glazebrook, 2020. "A Slot-Scheduling Mechanism at Congested Airports that Incorporates Efficiency, Fairness, and Airline Preferences," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(1), pages 115-138, January.
    6. Guo, Yechenfeng & Hu, Minghua & Zou, Bo & Hansen, Mark & Zhang, Ying & Xie, Hua, 2022. "Air Traffic Flow Management Integrating Separation Management and Ground Holding: An Efficiency-Equity Bi-objective Perspective," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 394-423.
    7. Ye, Qing Chuan & Zhang, Yingqian & Dekker, Rommert, 2017. "Fair task allocation in transportation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-16.
    8. Alexander S. Estes & Michael O. Ball, 2020. "Equity and Strength in Stochastic Integer Programming Models for the Dynamic Single Airport Ground-Holding Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(4), pages 944-955, July.
    9. Karsu, Özlem & Morton, Alec, 2015. "Inequity averse optimization in operational research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 245(2), pages 343-359.
    10. Xu, Yan & Dalmau, Ramon & Melgosa, Marc & Montlaur, Adeline & Prats, Xavier, 2020. "A framework for collaborative air traffic flow management minimizing costs for airspace users: Enabling trajectory options and flexible pre-tactical delay management," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 229-255.
    11. Chiwei Yan & Jerry Kung, 2018. "Robust Aircraft Routing," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(1), pages 118-133, January.
    12. Li, Max Z. & Ryerson, Megan S., 2019. "Reviewing the DATAS of aviation research data: Diversity, availability, tractability, applicability, and sources," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 111-130.
    13. Thomas Breugem & Twan Dollevoet & Dennis Huisman, 2022. "Is Equality Always Desirable? Analyzing the Trade-Off Between Fairness and Attractiveness in Crew Rostering," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2619-2641, April.
    14. Alexandre Jacquillat & Vikrant Vaze, 2018. "Interairline Equity in Airport Scheduling Interventions," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(4), pages 941-964, August.
    15. Montlaur, A. & Delgado, L., 2020. "Flight and passenger efficiency-fairness trade-off for ATFM delay assignment," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    16. Dimitris Bertsimas & Shubham Gupta, 2016. "Fairness and Collaboration in Network Air Traffic Flow Management: An Optimization Approach," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 57-76, February.
    17. Bolić, Tatjana & Castelli, Lorenzo & Corolli, Luca & Scaini, Giovanni, 2021. "Flexibility in strategic flight planning," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    18. Thomas Breugem & Luk N. Van Wassenhove, 2022. "The Price of Imposing Vertical Equity Through Asymmetric Outcome Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 7977-7993, November.
    19. Dimitris Bertsimas & Vivek F. Farias & Nikolaos Trichakis, 2012. "On the Efficiency-Fairness Trade-off," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(12), pages 2234-2250, December.
    20. Silvia Zaoli & Giovanni Scaini & Lorenzo Castelli, 2021. "Community Detection for Air Traffic Networks and Its Application in Strategic Flight Planning," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-16, August.
    21. Bongo, Miriam F. & Ocampo, Lanndon A., 2017. "A hybrid fuzzy MCDM approach for mitigating airport congestion: A case in Ninoy Aquino International Airport," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-16.
    22. Cao, Wenwei & Çelik, Melih & Ergun, Özlem & Swann, Julie & Viljoen, Nadia, 2016. "Challenges in service network expansion: An application in donated breastmilk banking in South Africa," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 33-48.

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