Capacity model for two intersecting runways

The accurate capacity evaluation of the runway system at an airport is prerequisite to air traffic flow management and also essential content of airport planning. In order to improve the logic for calculating departure capacity of the intersecting runways, a new capacity model for two intersecting runways is established based on MACAD (MANTEA Airfield Capacity and Delays model) and LMI runway capacity model. In this model, the effect of departures in previous inter-arrival gaps is considered in calculating the probability of inserting departures in current inter-arrival gap. The experiment on representative data of US commercial airports shows that the difference of “freely inserted departure” capacity derived from this model and MACAD model can reach as much as more than 3 aircraft per hour. The MACAD model has inserted too many “free” departures between arrivals because of not considering this effect.