Heterogeneous air traffic flow modeling and congestion mechanism clarification

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Actual track data is used to investigate the potential of cellular automata (CA) in air traffic modeling. Flight trajectories are mapped on nominal flight routes. The cell sizes are determined based on the flight stage, with two groups- enroute and descent being modeled separately for better accuracy. Cell size is calculated based on non-vectored flight lateral trajectories, so that non-vectored flights proceed one cell per unit time. Comparison between vectored and non-vectored trajectories and their speed profiles when modeled in CA reveals that CA can be applied successfully to model both congested and non-congested arrival traffic. Furthermore, merging routes are also investigated and it is shown that air traffic controllers consider merging traffic past a certain threshold only.