Network Congestion Control of Airport Surface Operations

This paper presents a novel approach to managing the aircraft taxi-out process at airports, by posing the problem in a network congestion control framework. A network model of the airport surface with stochastic link travel times is first developed. The model parameters for Boston Logan International Airport are estimated using empirical data from a surface surveillance system. Using the entry times of aircraft into the network as the control variables, a control algorithm that aims to reduce taxi-out times is proposed. This algorithm regulates network congestion while limiting the adverse effect on throughput performance. Performance characteristics of the proposed control algorithm are derived using simplified theoretical analysis, and are shown to agree with simulations of traffic on a network model of Boston Logan International Airport.