Passengers' Airport Choice

Modelling airport choice of passengers has been a subject of interest for air transport scientists and airport managers already for a while. Wilken, Berster and Gelhausen have reported of a market segment specific model approach to airport choice in Germany in a paper entitled "Airport Choice in Germany - New Empirical Evidence of the German Air Traveller Survey 2003" presented at the Air Transport Research Society World Conference 2005 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In continuation of the analysis of airport choice, based on the evidence coming from the data of the survey mentioned, this paper deals with a model of combined airport and access mode choice in Germany by market segment. The question arises why to model airport and access mode choice simultaneously. The underlying hypothesis is that airport and access mode choice are closely interrelated. Air travellers typically have a strong preference to choose the nearest airport as the aforementioned survey reveals. In Germany, 67% of the air travellers choose on average the nearest airport, however, travel time not only depends on distance covered, but also on the accessibility of fast access modes, such as for instance high speed intercity trains, to reduce travel time. Access time and access cost play a major role in airport choice, which in turn depend on access mode choice. The availability of access modes is again airport specific. Because of the strong dependence of airport and access mode choice on each other a combined model approach seems more sensible than two separate models. The combined approach allows including the aforementioned interrelations. This paper presents a combined airport and access mode choice model based on a nested logit approach, first presented at the Air Transport Research Society World Conference 2006 in Nagoya, Japan. It is called a "generalized nested logit model for airport and access mode choice" as it is not restricted to specific airports or a certain number of airport and access mode combinations, but allows to evaluate airport plans like the future Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport (BBI) in the southeast of Berlin or the introduction of new access modes, like a direct high speed intercity train access at already existing airports as this was the case between Cologne and Frankfurt airport in 2002. The case study concluding the paper is a modified excerpt of a study dealing with different future scenarios relating to airport and access mode choice in the Cologne region conducted by the author. As a means to achieve a general applicability of the model airports have been grouped into “airport categories”. Airports are categorised from a demand-oriented point of view to form clusters of homogenous airports regarding their general picture of their flight plan. The model is of particular interest for airport managers as well as high speed rail providers since it shows the dependence between the market share of an airport and access mode combination and its quality regarding their attributes, e.g. travel time, travel cost and weekly flight frequency to a given destination.Airport and access mode choice, discrete choice models, German Air Traveller Survey 2003, high speed train access, nested logit model

Airport Choice in Germany - New Empirical Evidence of the German Air Traveller Survey 2003

The paper deals with the quantitative relationship between the number of air travellers in any region and the airports chosen in Germany in 2003. The purpose of the paper is to present results of an analysis of airport choice behaviour of total air passenger demand in Germany, based on data of the German air traveller survey conducted at 17 international and 5 regional airports. About 210 000 passengers were interviewed about their trip origin, destination, choice of travel mode to the airport, purpose of their journey and further journey and person related attributes. As a result of the analysis so far, the distribution of airports chosen by all passengers coming from any region in Germany can be shown in relation to the journey purpose and destination. Based on these data, logit models have been calibrated for each market segment to forecast airport choice in relation to the accessibility and attractiveness of airports. As a further methodological step the outline of a combined neural and nested logit model of access mode and airport choice is given, which will be calibrated on the basis of the data of the German air traveller survey. Typically, the nearest airport will be chosen by most travellers, there are, however, on average eight airports serving one region (defined as a Spatial Planning Region, of which there are 97 in Germany). If there is an international airport in a region about two thirds of the demand coming from that region will choose that airport, and about one third will choose to depart from one of seven other airports. Vice versa, each airport attracts passengers coming from almost 40 regions. There is thus an intense interaction between an airport and a large influential area.Regional air travel demand; airport choice; air traveller survey; catchment areas of airports; travel route from origin via departing airport to destination area; logit model on airport choice; neural networks

Flughafen- und Zugangsverkehrsmittelwahl in Deutschland - Ein verallgemeinerter Nested Logit-Ansatz

The purpose of this paper is to present an airport and access mode choice model based on discrete choice theory. In particular, a nested logit-model approach is employed and alternatives are based on so-called "airport categories", which were formed from a demand-oriented point of view. For this purpose a cluster technique called Kohonen’s Self Organizing Maps was used. Therefore, the model is applicable to any number of specific airports and combinations of airports and access modes permitting an evaluation of future scenarios not existing today with regard to airports and accessibility. Therefore, this approach is entiteled as “generalized nested logit model”. Market segments are classified regarding destination type and travel purpose. Destination types are divided into domestic, European and intercontinental. With respect to travel purposes private and business trips are distinguished. The market segment of private air travel to European destinations is further subdivided into short stay and holiday trips.Airport and access mode choice, discrete choice models, nested logit-models

Business Aviation in Germany: An empirical and model-based analysis

The primary role of international airports is to serve the general public with scheduled and charter services, typically provided by airlines. Of secondary importance is their task to provide direct air transport access to the regional industry and to firms who operate their own fleets. In Düsseldorf (DUS), a major international airport in Germany with about 230 Thousand air transport movements (ATMs) in 2007, about 15 Thousand ATMs belonged to business aviation segment. Due to the complexity of slot allocation procedures and growing runway capacity problems at many international airports, business aviation has a growing problem at these airports to realise the demand for flights. However, neighbouring regional airports could play a complementary role and take over this traffic segment. Therefore, the objective of the paper is to describe and quantify the distribution of the growing business aviation between airports and show potential solutions and further avenues of how to accommodate business aviation at both major and near-by secondary airports. Analysis is supported by means of a new business aviation airport choice model based on a logit approach. This model differs significantly from other airport choice models for regular and tourism traffic in terms of the decision-relevant parameters: Factors such as accessibility of the airport, efficient passenger handling and the length of the runway of secondary airports play an important role, whereas price-related variables are less important to travellers of the business aviation segment. The model enables to develop promising strategies for secondary airports taking over a growing share of the business aviation segment in the case of a neighbouring international airport which suffers from congestion, thereby enhancing the overall level of service in consequence of airport cooperation.Business aviation on main and satellite airports; airport capacity problems; business aviation development; business aviation airport choice model; air traffic distribution between main and satellite airports

A NEW MODEL OF LONG TERM FORECASTING AIR PASSENGER DEMAND AND THE NUMBER OF AIR TRANSPORT MOVEMENTS OF GERMANY

The DLR has developed and applied a “classical” model of forecasting the total number of air passengers and aircraft movements and the cargo volume at German airports for many years. The model follows the traditional approach of forecasting the trip generation, spatial distribution and assignment to routes and aircraft movements. In recent years it has been found more and more difficult to update and verify the model because of lack of specific data. We have therefore developed a more versatile model, which directly forecasts the total number of air passengers and of air transport movements at the ensemble of German airports. The forecast functions are co-integrated structural regression models which have been econometrically estimated taking into account time series data of 1992 to 2014. The paper describes the model approaches and discusses advantages and disadvantages of the classical and new model approach