Using Auction-Based Slot Allocation for Traffic Demand Management at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport: A Case Study

This paper presents our ongoing research on an auction model a hybrid demand management approach for congested airports. It is intended to optimize the utilization of airport time slots by maximizing passenger throughput within safe capacity, decreasing congestion and delay. The two sub-models mathematically formulate conflicting optimization problems of efficiency-driven airport regulators and cost-driven airlines. By taking many key factors such as flight OD-pair, commercial aircraft size, historical on-time performance, airlines’ prior investment and monetary bid into a ranking function with respective weights, we put forward a framework that opens for many design alternatives. Along with a baseline, two special instances of the model are analyzed in a case study of Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to compare different auction formats and the resulting airport performance. The latter was made possible by a simulation queuing model. We propose that by varying these weights, the effects of administrative coordination and market force upon outcomes of the auction process could be monitored to achieve airport-specific desirable results. We also suggest that the conventional auction format that uses monetary bidding alone could lead to potential distortions of the marketplace and fail to meet air transportation officials’ concerns in terms of efficient utilization of national resources, policy makers’ concerns in terms of market structure and competitiveness. Future work will enlist the inputs from airlines and airports. L. Le, G. Donohue, C-H. Chen to be Presented at the National Research Council Transportation Research Board Meeting January 2004 3