Aerodrome Capacity Calculation

[unknown00]

Good day all,

does anyone know if there is a procedure or any icao articles in order to calculate aerodrome capacity for the provition of air traffic control.

Was anyone involved in such a project who can share his/her knowledge?

Thank you

[Spitoon]

Not sure about ICAO right now, I'm pretty sure they have such stuff - try looking in their catalogue of publications.

Years ago the FAA produced a document that had a formula that could be applied to various different configurations to determine a theoretical capacity. From what I recall the capacities that it came up with were not always particularly accurate (give or take maybe 10% or 15%of what could be achieved in reality depending on the circumstances) but it was very useful for producing comparisons of different configurations when planning.

[unknown00]

Thank you Spitoon.
Do you recall the name of the FAA document or the year?

[Spitoon]

This looks like the one:

http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraff...60_5_part1.pdf
http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraff...60_5_part2.pdf
http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraff...60_5_part3.pdf
http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraff...60_5_part4.pdf

Just Google "FAA airport capacity" and you'll find lots of more recent material too. You might also get some useful references from the Eurocontrol Airport Operations Programme.

[Musket90]

In UK this may help:

http://www.acl-uk.org/

Normally combination of airfield runway/taxiway infrastructure together with airspace. An average peak time delay criteria, eg 10 mins may be used at some airports. Sometimes Terminal passenger throughput can be the overriding factor.

[On the beach]

There are a lot of variables to factor in to your calculation to come up with a figure for your aerodrome capacity. If we assume, for the sake of simplicity, a fairly conservative final approach "spacing" of 5nm and an average speed over the final 5nm of 150kts, or 2.5nm per minute. You can see that in theory, with 5nm spacing, you can land 1 aircraft every 2 minutes or 30 aircraft in 1 hour. Assuming you depart as many aircraft, then your capacity is 60 movements per hour. So that's your very basic calculation. However, very few aerodromes manage to achieve this rate because of any number of variables.

Now the variables depending on your aerodrome - Runway occupancy time, number of rapid exit taxiways, traffic mix (heavy/medium/small) i.e. wake vortex considerations, number of aircraft stands, turn-around time, taxiway configuration, weather, controller ability etc. The list is inexhaustible.

Personal experience at many airports around the world leads me to say that if you are moving 40 aircraft an hour (20 arrivals and 20 departures) every hour then you will be doing pretty well.

On the beach

[chevvron]

NATS have a section which will carry out this type of exercise; where they are based I don't know (presumably CTC) but I have a feeling they don't take all factors into account eg backtracking departures, whether the airport is non H24 etc.

[flowman]

Read about what Eurocontrol do for airports here:

http://www.eurocontrol.int/corporate..._airports.html
http://www.eurocontrol.int/airports/..._page/ace.html

Contact these people:

http://www.eurocontrol.int/airports/.../contacts.html

and, depending on which country you are in, you might find they'll do the whole lot for you. They will at least be able to give you advice.

Regards,
flowman

[unknown00]

Thank you all for your answers.
Does anyone know if there are any private companies that can do these calculations?

[slatch]

I do not know of a company that specilizes in this. Alot has to do on runway and taxiway configuration, then the ratios of small, medium, heavy, and A380's using the airport. If it is only one runway it will be low, maybe 24 operations an hour max. This could be more or less depending on the number and placement of high speed taxiways. Crossing runways can be a little better, maybe 30 to 32 when well controlled. Then multiple runways make things even better, etc......

[chevvron]

NATS will do the calculation; they're a Public/Private Partnership rather than a private company. How much they charge I don't know, but they did it recently for my airport.

[Pat Mcgroin]

Capacity Calculations

Hi

reference your enquiry regarding private companies who carry out capacity works PM me and I will give you more information

Cheers

Pat