Analyzing the evolutionary mechanisms of the Air Transportation System-of-Systems using network theory and machine learning algorithms

Tatsuya Kotegawa, Purdue University

Abstract

Complexity in the Air Transportation System (ATS) arises from the intermingling of many independent physical resources, operational paradigms, and stakeholder interests, as well as the dynamic variation of these interactions over time. Currently, trade-offs and cost benefit analyses of new ATS concepts are carried out on system-wide evaluation simulations driven by air traffic forecasts that assume fixed airline routes. However, this does not well reflect reality as airlines regularly add and remove routes. A airline service route network evolution model that projects route addition and removal was created and combined with state-of-the-art air traffic forecast methods to better reflect the dynamic properties of the ATS in system-wide simulations. Guided by a system-of-systems framework, network theory metrics and machine learning algorithms were applied to develop the route network evolution models based on patterns extracted from historical data. Constructing the route addition section of the model posed the greatest challenge due to the large pool of new link candidates compared to the actual number of routes historically added to the network. Of the models explored, algorithms based on logistic regression, random forests, and support vector machines showed best route addition and removal forecast accuracies at approximately 20% and 40%, respectively, when validated with historical data. The combination of network evolution models and a system-wide evaluation tool quantified the impact of airline route network evolution on air traffic delay. The expected delay minutes when considering network evolution increased approximately 5% for a forecasted schedule on 3/19/2020. Performance trade-off studies between several airline route network topologies from the perspectives of passenger travel efficiency, fuel burn, and robustness were also conducted to provide bounds that could serve as targets for ATS transformation efforts. The series of analysis revealed that high robustness is achievable only in exchange of lower passenger travel and fuel burn efficiency. However, increase in the network density can mitigate this trade-off.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

DeLaurentis, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Aerospace engineering|Operations research

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