How to Measure Airport Connectivity? -Average Shortest Travel Time as Indicator

摘要

Air transport is connecting people and industries all over the world. However;;it is not clearlydefined how to measure this positive effect of air transport. In principle;;connectivity indicatorsallow the quantification of the connection quality of an airport to the air transport network andestimate the contribution of individual airlines to this effect.The paper presents the composition of different connectivity indicators. Base for the presentedindicators is a shortest path search algorithm that finds the optimal connections betweenworldwide airports with regard to travel time or number of stops. The paper focusses on thedevelopment of an airport connectivity indicator that can be described as the average quickesttravel time from the specified airport. By integrating also the temporal development of theshortest travel time;;the indicator rewards not only quick travel times but also high connectionfrequencies to other airports.The presented indicators aim to provide public institutions and airport operators with importantinformation about the location;;while airlines may highlight the advantages of a location by theirpresence. These benefits are demonstrated by case studies in which the connectivityperformances of selected airports and selected airlines are compared.