Abstract Benchmarking different aspects of air transport, and especially airport operations, is a research topic both important and complex, as proposed solutions are usually limited by data availability and underlying hypotheses. We here propose the use of two well-known statistical physics concepts, the Hurst exponent and the irreversibility, to measure the presence of interactions between landing flights from a macro-scale perspective. We firstly present a synthetic model of landings at an airport, showing how the two metrics are able to detect interactions arising from high volumes of traffic. Real landing data for twelve major European airports and ten Chinese ones are then analysed, showing that more interactions are present than what expected for the corresponding traffic. Results are nevertheless not homogeneous, with some airports (most notably Milano Malpensa, Madrid and Paris Charles de Gaulle) yielding statistically significant high values; and with Frankfurt airport having been especially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemics, which resulted in an increase in interactions in spite of a reduction in traffic. Some possible reasons behind these results, and their operational significance in terms of efficiency and safety, are finally discussed.

    Highlights We characterise landing interactions using the Hurst exponent and the irreversibility. Airports can be characterised according to the interactions between landing aircraft. Most airports present a clear drop in complexity following March 2020. Frankfurt airport is the exception, possibly due to changes in traffic patterns.


    Zugriff

    Zugriff prüfen

    Verfügbarkeit in meiner Bibliothek prüfen

    Bestellung bei Subito €


    Exportieren, teilen und zitieren



    Titel :

    Measuring landing independence and interactions using statistical physics


    Beteiligte:


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2022-12-17




    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)


    Format :

    Elektronische Ressource


    Sprache :

    Englisch




    Independence Day: Measuring disruption to shipments

    British Library Online Contents | 1997



    Helicopter undercarriage landing load measuring method

    LI QI / HUANG JIANXIN / AN YIFEI et al. | Europäisches Patentamt | 2023

    Freier Zugriff

    Statistical Independence from the Viewpoint of Linear Algebra

    Tsumoto, S. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2005