Interaction between Runway Loading and Effective Speed of Arriving Aircraft

We analyzed a special-purpose dataset containing times at which flights crossed concentric circles at various distances from six major US airports in July 2001. We converted the circle-crossing information into effective speeds along four flight segments defined by the circles. Working with data in 15 minute intervals, we correlated the segment speeds with runway loading, defined as expected arrival demand relative to runway capacity. We find that effective speeds of arriving traffic vary with their physical distance from the runway and their temporal distance from runway congestion. These traffic flow characterizations are made visible in a new data display developed in this paper. We thus have developed a new spatio-temporal characterization of arrival traffic flow that should be useful in efforts to understand the operation of this complex system.