https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34283 Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:29:14 GMT 2026-04-03T20:29:14Z https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/78844 Trends and Market Forces Shaping Small Community Air Service in the United States Wittman, Michael D.; Swelbar, William S. This report, Trends and Market Forces Shaping Small Community Air Service in the United States, is the first in a series of papers written under the umbrella of the MIT Small Community Air Service White Paper series. The aim of the paper series is to examine and analyze the past, current, and anticipated future trends of small community air service in the United States. The series is intended for a general audience of airline and airport executives, aviation policy makers, the news media, and anyone with an interest in the availability of commercial air service at the nation’s smaller airports. The authors of this paper series hope that these reports will serve to inform the policy debate with relevant and accurate statistical analysis, such that those responsible for deciding the future of small community air service will do so armed with factual basis for their actions. The authors of the MIT Small Community Air Service White Paper series are members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s International Center for Air Transportation, one of the nation’s premier centers for aviation, airline, and airport research. Financial support for study authors has been provided in part by the MIT Airline Industry Consortium, an interdisciplinary group of airlines, airport councils, policy makers, and advocacy groups dedicated to improving the state of the practice of air transportation research in the United States. However, any views or analyses presented in this and all future reports are the sole opinions of the authors and do not reflect the positions of MIT Airline Industry Consortium members or MIT. Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/78844 2013-05-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74585 Human Factors Studies of an ADS-B Based Traffic Alerting System for General Aviation Silva, Sathya; Cho, HongSeok; Gao, Hang; Kunzi, Fabrice; Hansman, R. John Several recent high profile mid-air collisions highlight the fact that mid-air collisions are a concern for general aviation. Current traffic alerting systems have limited usability in the airport environment where a majority of mid-air collisions occur. A Traffic Situation Awareness with Alerting Application (TSAA) has been developed which uses Automatic Dependent – Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B), a Global Positioning System (GPS) based surveillance system, to provide reliable alerts in a condensed environment... Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74585 2012-11-07T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74549 The Impact of Fuel Based Speed Reductions on Controller Conflicts in the National Airspace System Udluft, Heiko; Hansman, R. John Motivated by increasing fuel prices and a higher environmental awareness, a reduction in aircraft cruise speed leads to fuel-burn benefits. However such a change will likely not occur simultaneously fleet wide. Thus, it is likely that in future scenarios the variation of speeds flown in the National Airspace System (NAS) will increase and lead to a higher system complexity. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of reduced aircraft cruise speed on the NAS. Using the airspace simulation tool FACET a set of scenarios has been simulated to determine how a reduction of cruise speed will impact the number of conflicts that occur in the NAS. Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74549 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74539 An Approach to Analyze Tradeoffs for Aerospace System Design and Operation O'Neill, Gregory; Hansman, R. John There are important tradeoffs that need to be considered for the design and operation of aerospace systems. In addition to tradeoffs, there may also be multiple stakeholders of interest to the system and each may have different preferences as to the balance amongst the tradeoffs under consideration. A tradeoff hyperspace is created when there are three or more tradeoff dimensions and this increases the challenge associated with resolving the hyperspace in order to determine the best design and operation of a system. The corresponding objectives of this research are to develop a framework to analyze tradeoff hyperspaces and to account for the preferences of multiple stakeholders in this framework. Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74539 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/69850 Understanding the Impact of Potential Best-Equipped, Best-Served Policies on the En-Route Air Traffic Controller Performance and Workload Cho, HongSeok; Hansman, R. John New capabilities of Air Traffic Control (ATC) under development in Next Generation Air Transportation system (NextGen) will increase the system capacity to accommodate the expected growth in the air traffic. One of the key enablers of the NextGen capabilities is advanced onboard equipage of the aircraft. During the transition to NextGen, aircraft with different equipage levels will coexist in the same airspace: mixed-equipage. To reduce the mixed-equipage period, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed “best-equipped, best-served policy” as a governing principle for accelerating NextGen equipage, offering incentives to the early adopters of NextGen avionics. However, the policy may introduce new tasks to the air traffic controllers, increasing the cognitive workload and decreasing the controller performance. The policy may be implemented at the strategic or the tactical level. This thesis identified two representative tactical level policies that may increase the difficulty and workload of the en-route air traffic controllers: best-equipped, first-served (BEFS) policy and best-equipped, exclusively served (BEES) policy. To investigate the impact of the potential tactical best-equipped, best-served policies on en-route controller performance and workload, a human-in-the-loop simulation was developed to compare the impacts of the two identified potential policies and the current first-come, first-served policy. The two potential tactical best-equipped, best-served policies provided marginal operational incentives to the NextGen equipage aircraft; however, the policies significantly increased the controller errors and reduced the total system efficiency with considerable delays to the less equipped aircraft compared to the current policy. In addition, higher subjective workload rating with the potential policies, especially during heavy traffic loads, indicated an increase in the controller workload and a reduction of the controller capacity. The analysis suggests that caution needs to be exercised when considering implementation of best-equipped best-served policy at the tactical level. Therefore, a strategic level implantation of the best-equipped, best-served policy is recommended; however, this study did not address impact of the strategic level implementation of the policy. Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/69850 2012-03-23T00:00:00Z