Journal of Air Transport Management 42 (2015) 15e20

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Journal of Air Transport Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jairtraman

A dynamic adjustment and distribution method of air traffic flow en-

route
Zhaoning Zhang a, Zhongzhou Hao b, *, Zheng Gao c
a
College of Air Traffic Management, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, China
b
Airport Operation Center, Changsha Huanghua International Airport, Changsha 410141, China
c
Tianjin Station of Air Traffic Management, Tianjin 300300, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To improve the restrictions of flow distribution caused by the static air traffic flow distribution mode and
Available online 12 August 2014 alleviate the conflicts between the current flight traffic demand and the resource constraints of airspace,
the authors propose a flight flow dynamic adjustment and distribution model based on predatory
Keywords: thought and construct an en-route traffic load balance model. Flight flow dynamic adjustment distri-
Air traffic flow management bution model is based on comparing the current traffic en-route, the capacity en-route, the change rate of
Dynamic adjustment and distribution
traffic en-route and other factors. The ground holding policy and the route selection policy are combined
En-route traffic load balance
to optimize the predator thought. An equilibrium of traffic load is achieved with a dynamic adjustment
and distribution of each route in accordance with the current traffic condition of each route by cycle.
Model the en-route traffic load balance model based on the geometric relationship of the traffic load.
Finally, we use matlab 2010b for numerical example and the results show the effectiveness of the model
and algorithm can make the flight traffic of routes in balance.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction and literature reviews
With the rapid development of air transportation, the contra-
diction between flight demand and the constraints of airspace
resource have become increasingly prominent and it's hard to
alleviate this contradiction by simply rely on traditional air traffic
flow management or airspace management. For this reason, some
previous approaches have contributed to solve this problem. Gilbo
and EP, 2002 propose a theory to solve this problem based on
limiting the airport arrival and departure traffic. Zhang and Lu,
2009 propose a theory which uses the Vogel method to
construct ATFM traffic management model for air traffic flow
distribution management. However, these studies are based on the
requirement of all destination of the flight determines the actual
traffic and the capacity of a given route. The static flight traffic
management makes the traffic flow distribution before the flight.
Once the entire route network is finalized, the bottleneck of the
flight traffic is determined by this method at the same time. In this
way, the idle airspace resources can't be used in the actual oper-
ation. Parimal et al, 2007 first propose the concept of dynamic
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: zzhaoning@263.net (Z. Zhang), haozz213@126.com (Z. Hao).
airspace structure and point out that managing the air traffic flow
by adjusting the airspace structure, it can be more efficient.
EUROCONTROL proposes the ATFCM program (Eurocontrol
Experimental Center, 2006), aims at achieving the combination
of traffic management and capacity management seamlessly and
ensuring the dynamic balance between the needs of flight and the
airspace capacity; Jimmy Krozel et al, 2006 point out that we can
reduce the delays by both the airport ground holding and the route
selection in flight in case of inclement weather. Chris R.Brinton
et al, 2009 propose that we should classify the route based on
the dynamic density at first, then allocate the flight traffic of these
areas in the airspace which have more air traffic flow. Guglielmo
Lulli and Odoni, 2007 propose a theory which combines the
ground holding and aerial wait to manage the flight flow and solve
the restrictions of traditional airport traffic. These findings suggest
that we can solve our current problems by the dynamic adjust-
ment and distribution of traffic. However, these approaches lack
integrity of flight traffic adjustment and distribution principles and
programs, nor specific and feasible models and algorithms. In our
previous work, we proposed a model to solve the problem in this
respect based on the change of quantity of different species in
nature and a multi-objective programming model of dynamic
adjusting flight traffic, but these models are only applicable to the
two routes as a group, and it can't solve any distribution under

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2014.07.007
0969-6997/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
16 Z. Zhang et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 42 (2015) 15e20
unexpected circumstances. The efficiency is relatively low at the
same time.
This paper presents a dynamic adjustment and distribution
model of air traffic flow and en-route traffic load balance model.
Dynamic adjust and allocate the flight flow en-route according to
the real-time dynamic information and balance the traffic load of
each route.
2. Dynamic adjustment and distribution of air traffic flow
mathematical model
Change the traditional static flight traffic assignment model and
establish a dynamic adjustment and distribution model of air traffic
flow and en-route traffic load balance model. The dynamic
adjustment and distribution model defines a comprehensive index
at first. Then adjust and allocate the flight flow to each route ac-
cording to this index based on the ideas of optimized predatory
thought. The en-route traffic load balance model defines whether
the load of each route in balance based on the current traffic load of
each route.
2.1. Symbol definition
wg : The weight of the ground holding cost on departure airport.
wa : The weight of the air waiting cost en-route.
wr : The weight of the cost to divert.
i: The period of time and i ¼ 1; 2; 3; ….
j: The route and j ¼ 1; 2; 3; …; n.
k: The route segment of route j and k ¼ 1; 2; 3; …; m.
Dik0 : The ground holding time of the flights.
tikj : The more time spent on the route segment k of route j at the
time period i than that of the originally planned route.
G1 : The factor to determine the route selection and the dynamic
adjustment and distribution of flow.
G2 : The factor to determine the en-route flight traffic dynamic
adjustment and distribution under the influence of the strategy
for the use of airspace.
s: The originally planned number of aircrafts waiting to take off
on the airport ground.
v: The number of the aircraft in the selected route.
Ca : The ground holding capacity of the airport.
Crj : The capacity of route j. (The largest number of aircrafts pass
through the start point of the route per hour and)
l: The index of adjusting speed. (The larger the value of l is, the
smaller the adjusting speed will be.l0 is the initial value of the
adjustment and speed index and the value is 1.)
x: The flight traffic of the route segment which have the highest
composite index value at t. And we call this route segmentX.
y: The flight traffic of a adjacent route segment which have a
lower composite index value at t. And we call this route
segmentY.
z: The flight traffic of the route segment which encounter un-
expected situations at t. And we call this route segmentZ.
a1 : The percentage of y which was planned growth in unit time.
b11 : The percentage of y which was increased by the flow re-
allocated fromx in unit time.
b12 : The percentage of y which was increased by the flow re-
allocated fromz for some reason in unit time.
a2 : The percentage of x which was planned growth in unit time.
b22 : The percentage of x which was increased by the flow re-
allocated fromz for some reason in unit time.
a3 : The percentage of z which was planned growth in unit time
when it doesn't encounter unexpected situations.
a4 : The increasing percentage of z in unit time at the beginning
of encountering unexpected situations.
2.2. Dynamic adjustment and distribution modeling
Predator thought refers to the relationship between interde-
pendence and competition of a class of population. Adjust the rate
of change to balance population according to the number of the
current rate of change of the number of various populations. Make
the entire ecosystem of the various species in balance by adjusting
the rate of preying.
Consider the rate of flow change en-route, the capacity of route
and the current flight traffic en-route in the static distribution of air
traffic flow model. Dynamic adjustment and distribution of air
traffic flow model is based on a comprehensive index as the basis of
the flow adjustment and distribution. The index is determined by
the airspace use policy, the flight traffic load, delays of aircraft en-
route, duration of the flight and the control interval en-route.
Different decisions which are made by weighing these same fac-
tors will result in different cost. And the cost mainly refers to the
cost of air traffic control, airport equipment and air traffic control
equipment requirements.
The adjustment and distribution of air traffic flow speed is
determined by the weight ofwg ,wa andwr . So the factors which
affect the process of the distribution and redistribution of air traffic
flow en-route are as follows.

 2
 2
 2
1 wg Dik0 2 wa Dikj 3 wr tikj
Because the air waiting spend a larger, so the value of wa will be
particularly large and try to change air waiting to ground holding.
And it should give priority to consider the routes and airports load
to ensure the factor of safety. The factor determines the route se-
lection and the flow dynamic distribution is as follows. The value of
the factorG1 is determined by weight of the cost to divert and more
spend time.
G1 ¼ w2r tikj (1)
The flow dynamic adjustment and distribution is determined by
the factors which affected by the airspace use policy as follows. The
value of the factorG2 is determined byG1, the weight of the ground
holding cost on departure airport and the ground holding time.
G2 ¼ w2g Dik0 þ w2r tikj (2)
The weight of the ground holding cost on departure airport is
decided by the workload of the airport.
s
wg ¼ (3)
Ca
The weight of the cost to divert is decided by the workload of the
route and the index of adjusting speed.
l l v
wr ¼ w ¼ (4)
l0 rj l0 Crj
Then dynamic adjust distribution based on G1 andG2 . Establish
dynamic adjustment and distribution of air traffic flow model as
follows.
Assumey1 , y2 , …, yn1 as the flight traffic which will plan to join
Y at t. And assume yn as the flight traffic which will leaveY at t.
y1 þ y2 þ / þ yn1  yn
a1 ¼ (5)
y
The value of b11 is determined by the flight traffic of all route
based on the algorithm.
 Z. Zhang et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 42 (2015) 15e20 17

Cry : The capacity ofY.

ðy1 þ y2 þ / þ yn1 Þ2 ðy þ y2 þ / þ yn1 Þ h: The Judgment value of if the loads of these routes are in
b11 ¼ And l > 1
lxyðx1 þ x2 þ / þ xn1 Þ ðx1 þ x2 þ / þ xn1 Þ balance.
(6)
The value of b12 andb22 is determined by G1 andG2 . x y
Fx ¼ ; Fy ¼
8 Crx Cry
>
> w2g Dik0x þ w2rx tikjx
<
t2ðt1 ; t3 Þ
b12 ¼ w2g Dik0x þ w2rx tikjx þ w2g Dik0y þ w2ry tikjy (7) And ifh ¼ FFyx ¼ 1, we define this situation as the route load is
>
> t;ðt1 ; t3 Þ
: completely in balance. As the load of route is always changing in
0
practical situations, so we allow a certain deviation as margin of
Assumex1 , x2 , …, xn1 as the flight traffic which will plan to safety. At last we define the route load is in balance when the value
joinX at t. And assume xn as the flight traffic which will leaveX at t. of h is between 0.75 and 1.33.
x1 þ x2 þ / þ xn1  xn
a2 ¼ (8)
x 3. Real-time traffic dynamic adjustment and distribution
8 algorithm based on the dynamic adjustment and distribution
>
> w2g Dik0y þ w2ry tikjy model
<
t2ðt1 ; t3 Þ
b22 ¼ w2g Dik0x þ w2rx tikjx þ w2g Dik0y þ w2ry tikjy (9)
>
> t;ðt1 ; t3 Þ Establish the matrix of route network based on the value of
:
0 flight flow, the capacity of the route, length of the route and some
Assumez1 , z2 , …, zn1 as the flight traffic which will plan to joinZ other factors. And then compare the current situation of the route
at t. And assume zn as the flight traffic which will leaveZ att. to determine the dynamic adjustment and distribution of real-time

z1 þ z2 þ / þ zn1  zn
a3 ¼ (10)
z

zn
a4 ¼ (11)
z
So the change rate ofx, y and z are as follows.

vy

¼ a1 *y þ b11 *x*y þ b12 *z t  t1 *y (12)
vt

vx

¼ a2 *x  b11 *x*y þ b22 *z t  t2 *x (13)
vt
8
t;ðt1 ; t3 Þ
vz < 3
a z
¼ a4 z t2ðt1 ; t2 Þ (14)
vt :
0 t2ðt2 ; t3 Þ

At last, we establish the dynamic adjustment and distribution of

air traffic flow model according to the change rate ofx,y andz.
8 vy


>
> ¼ y a1 þ b11 x þ b12 z t  t1
>
> vt
>
>
>
> 
>
> vx

>
> ¼ x a2  b11 x þ b22 z t  t2
>
> vt
<
8 (20)
>
> a3 z t;ðt1 ; t3 Þ
>
> >
>
>
> >
<
>
> vz
>
> ¼ a4 z t2ðt1 ; t2 Þ
>
> vt >
>
> >
>
: :
0 t2ðt2 ; t3 Þ

2.3. En-route traffic load balance modeling

Construct the en-route traffic load balance model based on the

geometric relationship of the traffic load as follows.

Fx : The value of the flight traffic load of X.

Fy : The value of the flight traffic load of Y.
Crx : The capacity ofX. Fig. 1. The Flow chart of dynamic distribution algorithm for real-time air traffic.
18
traffic en-route. When bad weather happens, determine the ground
holding time and the route choice according to minimum cost
choice in the dynamic adjustment and distribution model. Adjust
the flight traffic from t1 to t4 and assume there will be occurrence of
severe weather from t2 to t3 Design the Flow chart of dynamic
distribution algorithm for real-time air traffic as Fig. 1.
4. Numerical examples
Take the route segment of W31eH10, R343-H24, A581-H10 as
example in this paper. And the route network is shown in Fig. 2. List
the length of these route segments at first. We define W31eH10 as
route A for short and its length is 444 km. We define R343-H24 as
route B for short and its length is 507 km. We define A581-H10 as
route A for short and its length is 524 km.
And get the capacity of these routes according to the length
above as follows.CrA ¼ 16:3, CrB ¼ 15:0, CrC ¼ 17:1
The departure flight flow at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport
is defined as FðtÞ ¼ ðAðtÞ; BðtÞ; CðtÞÞ.And AðtÞ represents the flight
flow scheduled to enter route A which be colored green. BðtÞ
7
The number of flights en-route n
2 Route A
1 10
8
Z. Zhang et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 42 (2015) 15e20
Fig. 2. The chart of selected route network.
represents the flight flow scheduled to enter route B which be
colored red. CðtÞ represents the flight flow scheduled to enter route
C which be colored yellow. Assume the speed of aircraft is 800 km/
h. After calculation we could knowtikjA ¼ 0:6h,tikjB ¼ 0:65h and
tikjC ¼ 0:7h. That means a aircraft must leave one route after a
period of time (tikj ) from the moment it enters this route.
At 8:00am, the number of aircraft on route A, B and C are 6, 4
and 5. And we will calculate the real-time number of aircraft en-
route in 12 h. Assume the number of aircraft which will enter
each route as follows.
AðtÞ ¼ ½4; 6; 3; 7; 5; 3; 7; 5; 8; 7; 3; 6,
BðtÞ ¼ ½5; 3; 7; 4; 5; 7; 4; 8; 4; 2; 7; 4,
CðtÞ ¼ ½5; 4; 6; 3; 5; 6; 3; 4; 6; 4; 3; 5.
Under normal circumstances, assume the best situation in
which all the loads of A, B and C route are in balance and the value
of G1 is smallest. Originally planned flight situation en-route is
shown in Fig. 3.
But in case of emergency, assume we should close the route C
immediately and flight flow originally planned to enter route C
should transfer to route A and B. Assume that there will be
Route B
Route C
12 14 16 18 20
Time 8:00-20:00
Fig. 3. The result of originally planned flight flow change.
 Z. Zhang et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 42 (2015) 15e20
The number of flights en-route n
7 Route C
0
8 10
Fig. 4. The flight traffic change after applying the dynamic adjustment and distribution model and algorithm.
occurrence of severe weather on route C at 13:00 (the 6th period).
So we need to close the route C at 12:00 (the 5th period) and no
aircrafts are allowed to enter this route until the severe weather
will disappear at 19:00 (the 11th period).
Apply dynamic adjustment and distribution of air traffic flow
model and the real-time traffic dynamic distribution algorithm to
allocate the flight flow. Obtain the results from the example which
calculated by matlab as Fig. 4 and Fig. 5.
We can get the result from Figs. 4 and 5 that the routes A and B
share the flight mission which belongs to route C in the original
plan successfully. And the loads of all the routes are more balanced
after the dynamic adjustment and distribution based on the above
model and algorithm. The value of h is between 0.75 and 1.33 at the
majority time. This represents that the flight flow of these routes
stay in balance after applying the dynamic adjustment and distri-
bution model and algorithm. Moreover, it takes only a few seconds
to fully accomplish the adjusting procedures once the parameters
are set. For the reason that there are few researches on this issue, so
we can only make a comparison between the dynamic adjustment
and distribution model and a multi-objective programming model
of dynamic adjusting flight traffic(Zhang and Hao, 2014) which was
proposed in our previous work. When we use the multi-objective
programming model of dynamic adjusting flight traffic, we need
to calculate a lot and all the calculation cannot be done by com-
puter. so it will take a lot of time and cannot realize the distribution
automatically. It can only get the optimal path by calculating each
flight and the efficiency is lower.
Another comparison we can make is between the dynamic
adjustment and distribution model and the dynamic adjusting
The Judgment value of the trrafic loads
1.4
1.3
1.2
en-routes h
1.1
0.9
0.8
0.7
8 10
Fig. 5. The result of h change after applying the dynamic adjustment and distribution model and algorithm.
19
Route A
Route B
12 14 16 18 20
Time 8:00-20:00
model of flight flow based on the Volterra Predator-Prey model
which was also proposed in our previous work (Hao and Zhang,
2013). It can only solve simply dynamic adjustment in common
circumstances. And haven't take the delay, the cost of ground
holding and the cost of divert into consideration.
So the dynamic adjustment and distribution of air traffic flow
model and the real-time traffic dynamic distribution algorithm will
help to take less time to adjust the distribution of the flight traffic
by using this model than others and it can complete the process of
adjustment and distribution once the imbalance of the load of flight
traffic happens and keep the flight traffic flow in balance in all
circumstances.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, the authors propose a flight flow dynamic adjust-
ment and distribution model based on predatory thought, establish
an en-route traffic load balance model and the Real-time traffic
dynamic adjustment and distribution algorithm. Aim at achieving
the function of the model and algorithm are suitable for the actual
operation en-route and the unexpected circumstances which lead to
restrictions on the flow of air traffic flow en-route. We proposed the
flight flow dynamic adjustment distribution model which is based
on comparing the current traffic en-route, the capacity en-route, the
change rate of traffic en-route and other factors. The ground holding
policy and the route selection policy are combined to optimize the
predator thought. An equilibrium of traffic load is achieved with a
dynamic adjustment and distribution of each route in accordance
with the current traffic condition of each route by cycle. Model the
12 14 16 18 20
Time 8:00-20:00
20 Z. Zhang et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 42 (2015) 15e20
en-route traffic load balance model based on the geometric rela-
tionship of the traffic load.
Finally, we use Matlab 2010b for numerical examples that use
the model and algorithms for dynamic adjustment and distribution
of real-time flight traffic en-route to achieve the goal of keeping the
traffic load of the route in balance. Moreover, we made a compar-
ison with the models which was proposed by our previous work.
And the result shows that it realizes the functions, confirms the
effectiveness and efficiency of the model and it performs better
than the models we proposed before.
But the model didn't consider the wind on the route, the type of
aircraft and other factors may affect the results of the dynamic
distribution, which will be the direction of further study.
Acknowledgments
The authors were supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No.71171190).
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