Guidelines for planning of the Italian regional airports development
Overview
Background & policy context:
The European air transport system is undergoing significant modifications due to the liberalisation process, the growth of demand for air services and technological innovations. In particular, regional airports have become one of the fastest growing sectors of the European aviation industry in recent years.
Low-cost carriers regard regional airports as cheap and uncongested, with levels of air transport demand which are not yet met by the supply available. Low-cost carriers have the potential to stimulate demand and their low-cost fares can also attract passengers from a much wider catchment area.
The major airlines also show a renewed interest in regional airports because they consider regional airports as spokes that can feed traffic to intercontinental services at their hubs. Regional airlines in turn are likely to play an increasing role in providing fast and efficient communications around Europe; the flexibility offered by new regional jet aircraft enables provision of services to be more closely matched to demand and new markets can be exploited that are beyond the reach of major carriers.
In this context, the role of air transport as a facilitator for regional economic development and the development of new routes from European regional airports has been examined. Furthermore, methods and models that can simulate future configurations of the air transport system - along with external and internal impacts of innovations, modifications and decisions - have been evaluated.
Objectives:
The goal of the project was to provide a procedural framework based on the use of mathematical models to simulate and analyse the Italian airport system as a whole. The final product of the research project is a manual containing guidelines for planning the development of Italian regional airports.
The procedures proposed in the manual have been tested on some prototypal cases in order to verify their effectiveness. The quantitative evaluation of different structures of the air transport system, particularly with reference to the regional poles, directly concern the stakeholders of the Italian airport system; in fact, the opportunity to re-valorise existing airports in a wider network system or to build a new airport can be evaluated by using mathematical approaches able to simulate the different components and effects of the system.
The results can be used to define and monitor planning policies and to establish which project is more suitable or has greater priority, given the amount of public financial resources that are available.
Methodology:
The methodology proposed to plan the development of the Italian regional airports is based on a set of models that are able to simulate the air transport system in terms of demand (and attraction basins), supply and their interactions, with particular reference to the regional poles. A performance analysis can also be conducted by means of suitable indexes that are able to represent the point of view of the various stakeholders (air carriers, users, society, etc.).
Indeed, the evolution of the air transport system both in terms of low cost companies, that generally use regional airports, and new technologies (such as regional jets, a kind of aircraft used for medium-short distances, characterised by high cruise speed for its aircraft class, low noise level and reduced landing/take-off distances) has given a further impulse to the development of planning methodologies to support decisions concerning regional airports.
Low-cost carriers generally use regional airports and offer services characterised by cheap fares and point-to-point links that reduce the number of transfers and additional waiting time due to the connections between flights. Both these factors (low fares and reduction of the whole trip time) influence significantly the passenger demand level for a given airport and the attraction basin of it, which in turn depends on both the transport supply characteristics at the airport and the airport accessibility with respect to a geographic area.
Given the supply characteristics (links and services) and the passenger demand level (in turn depending on the supply characteristics and the airport accessibility), different configurations of the system can be obtained in terms of both passenger capacity of the links and the performances of the system as regards to more actors (air companies, users, society). The latter aspect can be analysed by means of suitable indexes that take into account the point of view of the involved actors.
In summary, the following methodologies have been applied in this research project:
- methodologies to estimate and forecast the air transport demand
- methodologies to determine an airport traffic basin
- methodologies to simulate the air transport network and the interaction between air transport demand and supply
- methodologies to analyse the performances of an air transport system.
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