Data-Driven Analysis for Calculated Time Over in Air Traffic Flow Management

Excessive air traffic demand saturates air traffic control and causes traffic delays due to limited airspace and airport capacity. Air traffic flow management (ATFM) is used to regulate such demand using traffic management initiatives (TMIs), such as ground delay, miles-in-trail and speed adjustment. The Calculated Time Over (CTO), which is a time-assignment TMI for an in- flight aircraft, is being widely developed and CTO operational trials have also been conducted in Japan. This study develops means of estimating several important indices, including the compliance rate and mean expected delay, using data collected in the trial and shadow CTO operations. The estimation methods show variation in indices with differing maximum assigned CTO, while the analytical results suggest the optimal maximum assigned CTO. Furthermore, a variable maximum assigned CTO is proposed to improve the CTO operation. The analytical results show that the proposed method can improve the compliance rate as well as the mean expected delay.