Free-Flight and en Route Air Safety: A First-Order Analysis

Arnold Barnett ()
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Arnold Barnett: Sloan School of Management, Operations Research Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Operations Research, 2000, vol. 48, issue 6, 833-845

Abstract: Under present arrangements, U.S. commercial planes do not travel “as the crow flies” from origin to destination; rather, they are generally restricted to paths within a grid. New technologies, however, raise the possibility of moving to a “free-flight” regime under which planes could fly directly from point to point. Striving for general insight rather than definitive conclusions, we use geometrical probability to assess how free-flight could affect the safety and efficiency of en route air traffic operations. We work with two air traffic control sectors: one hypothetical and the other based on actual traffic patterns over Albany, New York. Though tentative, the results suggest that---so long as certain operational constraints are retained---the changed geometry of flight paths after a transition to free-flight might tend in itself to diminish mid-air collision risk. Much depends, however, on whether the human/technological capabilities of future air traffic control can match the extraordinary effectiveness of the existing system.

Keywords: Transportation; safety: aviation collision risk modeling; Reliability; failure models: aviation collision risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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