The Departure Planner (DP) is a concept for a decision-aiding tool that is aimed at improving thedeparture operations performance at major congested airports. In order to support thedevelopment of the DP tool, the flow constraints and their causalities in the departure process -primarily responsible for generating inefficiencies and delays- need to be identified. This thesisis an effort to identify such flow constraints and gain a deep understanding of the underlyingdynamics of the departure process based on field observations and data analysis at Boston LoganInternational Airport. It was observed that the departure process is a complex interactivequeuing system, where aircraft queues form as a manifestation of the flow constraints. Whiledeparture delays were observed in all airport components (runways, taxiways, ramps and gates),it was concluded that the flow constraints manifest mainly at the runway system, which exhibitsthe largest delays and queues. Major delays and inefficiencies were also observed due todownstream flow constraints, which propagate back and block the departure flow from theairport. It was also observed that the airport system is a highly controlled system as the airtraffic controllers manage the flow constraints. The air traffic controllers were, therefore,identified as another flow constraint due to their workload and their main strategies in managingthe flow constraints were observed. Based on the observations, a core departure process wasidentified consisting of two main elements: a queuing element generated by the flow constraintsand a control element representing the air traffic controller actions. This core process wasabstracted using a controlled queuing framework, where the air traffic controller actions arerepresented by blocking the flow of aircraft in order to maintain safe operation of the airportresources according to the ATC rules and procedures and regulate the outbound flow toconstrained downstream resources. The controlled queuing framework was used to analyze thedeparture process highlighting the queuing dynamics and the control behavior for different flowconstraint examples. In conclusion, a number of implications for the Departure Planner andother improved methods for departure operations are inferred from the observations and analysis.
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