Purpose

An important and challenging question for air transportation regulators and airport operators is the definition and specification of airport capacity. Annual capacity is used for long-term planning purposes as a degree of available service volume, but it poses several inefficiencies when measuring the true throughput of the system because of seasonal and daily variations of traffic. Instead, airport throughput is calculated or estimated for a short period of time, usually one hour. This brings about a mismatch: air traffic forecasts typically yield annual volumes, whereas capacity is measured on hourly figures. To manage the right balance between airport capacity and demand, annual traffic volumes must be converted into design hour volumes, so that they can be compared with the true throughput of the system. This comparison is a cornerstone in planning new airport infrastructures, as design-period parameters are important for airport planners in anticipating where and when congestion occurs. Although the design hour for airport traffic has historically had a number of definitions, it is necessary to improve the way air traffic design hours are selected. This study aims to provide an empirical analysis of airport capacity and demand, specifically focusing on insights related to air traffic design hours and the relationship between capacity and delay.

Design/methodology/approach

By reviewing the empirical relationships between hourly and annual air traffic volumes and between practical capacity and delay at 50 European airports during the period 2004–2021, this paper discusses the problem of defining a suitable peak hour for capacity evaluation purposes. The authors use information from several data sources, including EUROCONTROL, ACI and OAG. This study provides functional links between design hours and annual volumes for different airport clusters. Additionally, the authors appraise different daily traffic distribution patterns and their variation by hour of the day.

Findings

The clustering of airports with respect to their capacity, operational and traffic characteristics allows us to discover functional relationships between annual traffic and the percentage of traffic in the design hour. These relationships help the authors to propose empirical methods to derive expected traffic in design hours from annual volumes. The main conclusion is that the percentage of total annual traffic that is concentrated at the design hour maintains a predictable behavior through a “potential” adjustment with respect to the volume of annual traffic. Moreover, the authors provide an experimental link between capacity and delay so that peak hour figures can be related to factors that describe the quality of traffic operations.

Originality/value

The functional relationships between hourly and annual air traffic volumes and between capacity and delay, can be used to properly assess airport expansion projects or to optimize resource allocation tasks. This study offers new evidence on the nature of airport capacity and the dynamics of air traffic design hours and delay.

中文翻译：

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机场容量和需求的实证评估：有关空中交通设计时间和延误的见解

目的

对于航空运输监管机构和机场运营商来说，一个重要且具有挑战性的问题是机场容量的定义和规范。年容量用于长期规划目的，作为可用服务量的程度，但由于流量的季节性和每日变化，在测量系统的真实吞吐量时会造成一些低效率。相反，机场吞吐量是在短时间内（通常是一小时）计算或估计的。这会带来不匹配：空中交通预测通常产生年度流量，而运力则按小时数据衡量。为了管理机场容量和需求之间的适当平衡，必须将年交通量转换为设计小时交通量，以便将其与系统的真实吞吐量进行比较。这种比较是规划新机场基础设施的基石，因为设计期参数对于机场规划者预测拥堵发生地点和时间非常重要。尽管机场交通设计时间历来有多种定义，但有必要改进空中交通设计时间的选择方式。本研究旨在提供机场容量和需求的实证分析，特别关注与空中交通设计时间以及容量和延误之间的关系相关的见解。

设计/方法论/途径

本文通过回顾 2004 年至 2021 年期间 50 个欧洲机场每小时和每年航空交通量之间以及实际容量和延误之间的经验关系，讨论了为容量评估目的确定合适的高峰时段的问题。作者使用了来自多个数据源的信息，包括 EUROCONTROL、ACI 和 OAG。这项研究提供了不同机场群的设计时间和年吞吐量之间的功能联系。此外，作者还评估了不同的日常流量分布模式及其在一天中每小时的变化。

发现

机场在容量、运营和交通特征方面的聚类使我们能够发现年交通量与设计小时内交通量百分比之间的函数关系。这些关系有助于作者提出经验方法，从年流量中得出设计时间内的预期流量。主要结论是，通过对年交通量的“潜在”调整，集中在设计时间的年交通总量百分比保持了可预测的行为。此外，作者还提供了容量和延迟之间的实验联系，以便高峰时段数据可以与描述交通运营质量的因素相关联。

原创性/价值

每小时和每年的空中交通量之间以及容量和延误之间的函数关系可用于正确评估机场扩建项目或优化资源分配任务。这项研究为机场容量的性质以及空中交通设计时间和延误的动态提供了新的证据。