Simulation of the North Atlantic Air Traffic and Separation Scenarios

• Main Authors: Gerhardt-Falk, Christine M., Elasyed, E. A., Livingston, Dale, Colamosca, Brian
• Other Authors: FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION TECHNICAL CENTER ATLANTIC CITY NJ
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: Air Navigation and Guidance; *SIMULATION; *AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS; SCENARIOS; QUICK REACTION; COST EFFECTIVENESS; VALIDATION; LITERATURE SURVEYS; SPECIFICATIONS; TASK FORCES; REDUCTION; NAVIGATION; VERTICAL ORIENTATION; AIR SPACE; FUEL CONSUMPTION; STANDARDS; SEPARATION; HORIZONTAL ORIENTATION; SAVINGS; NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN; FREE FLIGHT; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA375940; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA375940

This report presents a comprehensive study of the air traffic over the North Atlantic (NAT) Ocean. The main purpose of the study is to assess the fuel savings benefit of proposed changes to the separation standards in the NAT Minimum Navigation Performance Specification (MNPS) airspace. The report describes in detail the purpose of the study, literature survey of relevant work, requirements for the air traffic simulation, various separation standard scenarios, validation of the simulation model, analysis of the results, and conclusions. Using the separation standards from the 1996 NAT system as the baseline, this study presents analysis of four different separation scenarios: Reduced Vertical Separation Minima, Reduced Vertical and Longitudinal Separation Minima, Reduced Vertical and Horizontal Separation Minima and Free Flight. A fast time simulation model is used to investigate the effect of the separation scenarios on several measures of system performance such as fuel consumption and communication loadings. This study was completed in cooperation with the NAT Implementation Management Group Cost Effectiveness (NICE) Task Force. The results presented in this report represent the findings of the NICE-USA Task Group.