Congestion transition in air traffic networks

PLoS One. 2015 May 20;10(5):e0125546. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0125546. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Air Transportation represents a very interesting example of a complex techno-social system whose importance has considerably grown in time and whose management requires a careful understanding of the subtle interplay between technological infrastructure and human behavior. Despite the competition with other transportation systems, a growth of air traffic is still foreseen in Europe for the next years. The increase of traffic load could bring the current Air Traffic Network above its capacity limits so that safety standards and performances might not be guaranteed anymore. Lacking the possibility of a direct investigation of this scenario, we resort to computer simulations in order to quantify the disruptive potential of an increase in traffic load. To this end we model the Air Transportation system as a complex dynamical network of flights controlled by humans who have to solve potentially dangerous conflicts by redirecting aircraft trajectories. The model is driven and validated through historical data of flight schedules in a European national airspace. While correctly reproducing actual statistics of the Air Transportation system, e.g., the distribution of delays, the model allows for theoretical predictions. Upon an increase of the traffic load injected in the system, the model predicts a transition from a phase in which all conflicts can be successfully resolved, to a phase in which many conflicts cannot be resolved anymore. We highlight how the current flight density of the Air Transportation system is well below the transition, provided that controllers make use of a special re-routing procedure. While the congestion transition displays a universal scaling behavior, its threshold depends on the conflict solving strategy adopted. Finally, the generality of the modeling scheme introduced makes it a flexible general tool to simulate and control Air Transportation systems in realistic and synthetic scenarios.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aircraft
  • Computer Simulation
  • Europe
  • Humans
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Transportation*

Grants and funding

The work was co-financed by EUROCONTROL on behalf of the SESAR Joint Undertaking in the context of SESAR Work Package E, project ELSA, and Complex World Network PhD. VDPS acknowledges the EU FP7 Grant 611272 (project GROWTHCOM) and CNR PNR Project “CRISIS Lab” for financial support. The paper reflects only the authors’ views. EUROCONTROL is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. EUROCONTROL had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. SONY-CSL only provided material support (not salaries) for one of the authors, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors are not employed by SONY-CSL.