Using ADS-B Trajectories to Measure How Rapid Exit Taxiways Affect Airport Capacity

Abstract

The capacity of an airport can be specified with a so-called capacity envelope, which indicates how many take-offs and landings an aerodrome is capable of handling per unit time. In this study, the capacity envelope of an airport is determined on the basis of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast aircraft trajectories obtained via the OpenSky Network. Trajectories are classified as departures and arrivals by using rule-based algorithms. Subsequently, the time of landing or take-off is determined for all these flight movements. Since some of the trajectories used in this study are not entirely covered near the ground, an XGBoost model is used to improve the determination of the take-off and landing times. In a final step, the capacity envelope is determined. To this end, the number of take-offs and landings operated at an airport within 15-minute intervals are counted first. Then, the 92.5th percentile of departures is computed for all observed arrival counts. Finally, a concave, non-increasing piecewise-linear function is fitted to these quantile values. The method introduced in this study is subsequently applied to Lisbon Airport in order to evaluate if and how the construction of an additional rapid exit taxiway has affected its capacity. The results suggest that Lisbon Airport benefits from this rapid exit taxiway. Indeed, especially when the airport handles a high number of landings, the additional rapid exit taxiway appears to allow for a slightly higher number of departures.