Aircraft Ground-Taxiing Model for Congested Airport Using Cellular Automata

Efficient airport surface operation is considered key to successful implementation of 4-D trajectories. Here, an airport surface aircraft model is developed to improve simulation accuracy. The new simulation method is developed based on the Nagel-Schreckenberg (NS) model, which is a car congestion model, and it considers the taxiing speed and the time histories of taxiing, particularly for a heavy traffic environment. To validate the model, airport surface surveillance data at Tokyo International Airport are used, and it is proven that the congestion phenomenon is modeled well with an average accuracy of about 30 s.