Breaking Through the Bottleneck - Transportation to Make Stewart a Viable New York Airport

摘要

The city of New York is served by the largest and busiest airport complex in the world. The three metropolitan airports, LaGuardia (LGA), Newark Liberty International (EWR), and John F. Kennedy International (JFK), are consequently plagued by flight delays. Since population density and economic feasibility prohibit further development of New York City airports, the New York New Jersey Port Authority recently leased an isolated airport 97 kilometers north of the city - Stewart International (SWF). Due to Stewart's distance from Manhattan however, airlines are hesitant to shift operations to SWF without a noticeable transportation improvement that links it to the city. Four alternatives have been identified that evade currently congested air and ground-based traffic: High Speed Commercial Ferries (HSCF), Sky-Cat 50 airships, and two commercial helicopter models, the Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma and the Sikorsky S-92. Since the number of vessels required to move a set quantity of passengers is unknown and can vary drastically based on vessel speed and capacity, a system dynamic model was written in Python. Upon finding the number of vessels for each alternative which handles the appropriate amount of passenger traffic, each alternative's key decision variables (including time in transit, seating capacity, cost, safety rating, etc.) were compared through tradeoff analysis and measured against operational costs. This resulted in a utility value based on each alternative's ability to form a suitable, functional, economical system, that supports a recommendation which we can be presented to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey as to which alternative makes SWF a more viable air travel choice to passengers and airlines alike.