North Atlantic Organized Track System Allocation Optimization

Transatlantic flight operations are, due to the absence of radar-based surveillance, the influence of the polar jet stream and the highly directional traffic peaks, significantly different compared to continental flight operations. To safely accommodate all transatlantic traffic in the North Atlantic oceanic airspace the Organized Track System (OTS) has been established, existing of a number of pre-determined flight routes. Currently, about half of all transatlantic traffic uses the OTS which is created twice a day, once to accommodate the westbound traffic and once to accommodate the eastbound traffic flow. All aircraft requesting to use the OTS send an oceanic clearance request to the oceanic planning controller, containing the estimated time of arrival at the track entry boundary, the preferred OTS track, flight level and Mach number. The aircraft are cleared onto the OTS using a first-come, first-served (FCFS) approach, taking the separation requirements with already cleared aircraft into account. If an oceanic clearance request cannot be granted due to a potential loss of separation, the requesting aircraft will receive an alternative clearance. The research objectives of this thesis assignment are to: “Reduce the total direct operating cost of transatlantic air traffic by optimizing the OTS track allocation procedure using a real-time meta-heuristic scheduling algorithm” “Create a model capable of optimizing the OTS track allocation procedure for different cost-index values” This research aims at improving the current OTS track allocation procedure by changing the first-come, first-served approach, currently used, to a scheduling concept in which the total direct operating cost (DOC) is minimized for a large number of aircraft in a single optimization window. The use of a meta-heuristic optimization algorithm is proposed in this thesis project and the potential of using stochastic optimization for large scheduling problems is researched. The direct operating cost penalties for the possible alternative clearances is determined using fuel consumption models in combination with time cost models. The created population algorithm is tested for multiple cost-index values, using real life problems, and the results are compared to the existing OTS track allocation procedure. The generated results show a potential direct operating cost reduction as well as the possibility to use the created track allocation algorithm as a real-time decision support tool for the oceanic planning controller.Air Tranport and OperationsControl and SimulationAerospace Engineerin