The FAA is making its runwaySimulator airport capacity program publicly available for aviation applications, such as airport planning. It has used the runwaySimulator program in recent years for its own airport capacity measurement purposes. Developed by Mitre, the program assesses existing capacity along with improvements that could increase capacity, such as new infrastructure or flight procedures.
The program simulates arriving and departing traffic at an airport, along with runway assignment, sequencing and flight operations. It generates a traffic sample, including a mix of aircraft types, that keeps pressure on the airport. It can simulate constant demand, with steady traffic flow for several hundred hours, to estimate capacity. RunwaySimulator does not measure non-runway constraints or limitations elsewhere in the National Airspace System.
Comments
David Khanoyan
January 6, 2015 - 9:12am
Does the runwaySimulator program have the ability to show the increased throughput if and when ALL aircraft utilizing a particular airport are equipped with multi-mode receivers (SBAS/GBAS)?
Kerry Lynch
January 8, 2015 - 5:23pm
:
/GBAS can be varied, resulting in different capacity curves. However, it would be up to the user to define and defend any assumptions made about the improvement in either (1) separation minima or (2) excess separation (aka “buffer”) that are dependent on GBAS/SBAS.
timcapps
January 6, 2015 - 2:44pm
Would be more useful if in addition to telling us that this is available, you told us WHERE to get it?
Chad Trautvetter
January 6, 2015 - 3:03pm
, there was supposed to be a link included in the story, and I've now fixed this oversight. Those wanting to use the app must request access to it from the FAA at http://www.faa.gov/airports/planning_capacity/runwaysimulator/