Airspace users have the option to reorder their flights to optimise resources, such as aircraft,  pilots and crew in instances of air traffic flow management (ATFM) disruptions. Applying behavioural economics to these complex decisions expands the concept beyond individual prioritisation while considering wider network performance. The BEACON project researched new methods and tools for airspace users that take account of requirements such as equity, bounded rationality and hyperbolic discounting.

The project addressed this on two levels. At the methodological level, new approaches were developed for the assessment of flight prioritisation mechanisms based on behavioural economics; while at an applied level, new flight prioritisations were formulated and assessed. The research considered long term planning capabilities by flight planning agents as well as tactical decision-making.

Three semi-automated flight prioritisation mechanisms were designed and tested using two agent-based simulators, one strategic and one tactical. Two mechanisms were used in the human-in-the-loop simulations in order to collect the data to be used to calibrate the parameters of behavioural economics models chosen to describe the biases and the deviations from rationality that one can expect from the airlines. The parameters were then included in the tactical simulator to assess the impact of the mechanisms that considered behavioural economics biases at the network level. 

The proposed mechanisms were able to provide remarkable cost reductions even when some of the actors involved made decisions in a sub-optimal and non-rational manner. It resulted in a better understanding of how behavioural economics can improve airspace management methodologies while deepening the concepts of prioritisation beyond user-driven prioritisation process (UDPP) and their potential impacts on network performance.

Benefits

• Reduced delay costs
• Equitable delay management
• Reduced passenger delays