Better Pricing Strategies for ATM?

Objectives of this paper are: briefly examine solutions applied in other network industries and based on that, set the policy and pricing context for development of market-based mechanisms for strategic air traffic re-distribution to avoid congestion, which is a main goal of SATURN project. Further, focus on current and possible future ATM pricing policy goals, by summarising current practice in Europe and introducing two possible future scenarios developed within the project. The implementation plan is outlined, discussing both the modelling challenges and the parallel consultation and validation processes. We conclude with a short look ahead

Modulation of en-route charges to redistribute traffic in the European airspace

Peak-load pricing (PLP), a two-tariffs charging scheme commonly used in public transport and utilities, is tested on the European Air Traffic Management (ATM) system as a means for reducing capacity-demand imbalances. In particular, a centralised approach to PLP (CPLP) where a Central Planner (CP) sets en-route charges on the network is presented. CPLP consists of two phases: in the first, congested airspace sectors and their peak and off-peak hours are identified; in the second, CP assesses and sets en-route charges in order to reduce overall shift on the network. Such charges should guarantee that Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) are able to recover their operational costs while inducing the Airspace Users (AUs) to route their flights in a way that respects airspace capacity. The interaction between CP and AUs is modelled as a Stackelberg game and formulated by means of bilevel linear programming. Two heuristic approaches, based on Coordinate-wise Descent and Genetic Algorithms are implemented to solve the CPLP model on a data set obtained from historical data for an entire day of traffic on European airspace. Results show that significant improvements in traffic distribution in terms of shift and sector load can be achieved through this simple en-route charges modulation scheme

SATURN D6.5 - Final Report

The objective of the SATURN (Strategic Allocation of Traffic Using Redistribution in the Network) project is to make novel and credible use of market-based demand-management mechanisms to redistribute air traffic in the European airspace. This reduces congestion and saves the airspace users operational costs. The project is motivated by frequent demand and capacity imbalances in the European airspace network, which are forecast to continue in the near future. The present and foreseen ways of dealing with such imbalances mainly concern strategic and tactical capacity-side interventions, such as resectorisation and opening of more sectors to deal with excess demand. These are followed by tactical demand management measures, if needed. As a result, not only do substantial costs arise, but airspace users are also typically left with no choice but to comply with imposed air traffic flow management measures. The project shows how economic signals could be given to airspace users and air navigation service providers (ANSPs) to improve capacity-demand balancing, airspace design and usage, and what the benefits would be of a centralised planner compared with those of decentralised maximisation of self interests (by the ANSPs and/or airspace users)

Bid-Price Heuristics for Unrestricted Fare Structures in Cargo Revenue Management

In the present work we propose two bid-price based heuristic approaches to tackle a stochastic price-oriented demand of air cargo transportation. We assume fares are non-decreasing over time: the earlier the booking, the cheaper the fare. We consider a single-leg flight without overbooking practices or no-show customers. The proposed framework is suited for air cargo carriers providing a unique product to all its price-oriented customers. The business sustainability relies on a significant reduction in fares that would outperform other benefits, an earlier time of delivery above all. Nevertheless, our modelling framework may be easily extended to other modes of cargo transportation, such as maritime, where a given shipment receives the same service regardless the paid fare, which, in turn, only depends on the time the booking request is made

Reducing ATFM delays through strategic flight planning

This paper presents an integer programming model for strategic redistribution of flights so as to respect nominal sector capacities, in short computation times for large-scale instances. The main contribution lies in the combination of tackling large-scale strategic flight planning using hard capacity constraints, while considering the whole network (i.e., both airports and sectors). Real historic data for network and traffic description are used for our test instance. Strategic and tactical impact assessments show that early flight planning can lead to the reduction of delays and their costs, showing potential for actual implementation

ITS solutions for air cargo revenue management

In this work we present Revenue Management applications for air cargo and discuss the most relevant issues that currently limit their effectiveness. We explain how these concerns may be tackled by decreasing uncertainty on customer data and improving communication along the supply chain and we illustrate how integration with Intelligent Transportation Systems may play a key role in delivering such improvements

SATURN D1.1 - Data Management (main report)

SATURN is motivated by frequent demand and capacity imbalances in the European airspace network. Its traffic redistribution mechanisms will be tested on European-wide scale instances to compare different models and analyse modelling results versus current practice. As there are multiple challenges in collecting and processing the data SATURN’s mechanisms and models require, we herein identify the main sources of such data that will be used by the models and provide numerous detailed examples to explain key concepts and project-developed bespoke capabilities