*_Notice and Invitation_*
Oral Defense of Doctoral Dissertation
The Volgenau School of Engineering, George Mason University


Abdul Qadar Kara
Bachelor of Science, Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, 2002
Master of Science, Universitaet des Saarlandes, 2004


A Congestion Pricing Model to Handle "Day of Operations" Airport Capacity Reductions due to Inclement Weather

Thursday, July 28, 2011, 10:00am -- 12:00pm
Nguyen Engineering Bldg., Room 4801

All are invited to attend.

*_Committee_*

Karla Hoffman,Chair
George Donohue
Lance Sherry
Dana Richards

*_Abstract_*

The Airline Industry in the United States is one of the major 
transportation alternatives for the US.It is a highly connected network 
used by over 712.6 million people in 2010 and is the most common means 
of travel for origin-destination pairs of greater than 250 miles. This 
has forced the US Department of Transportation (DOT) to consider 
solutions to relieve this congestion and to provide alternate solutions 
to the current system that has not been able to resolve this issue.

Recently researchers have been investigating market-clearing mechanisms 
such as congestion pricing to relieve short term congestion effectively. 
In such a price-based system, prices are announced for the scarce 
resources (e.g., runway access) and the users respond by either paying 
the announced price or opting out and either delaying or canceling the 
flight. Thus, by charging airlines to use the scarce runway access, the 
aim is to provide service to those who value it the most. For Ground 
Transportation, congestion pricing currently has been successfully 
implemented in several sectors.

This research proposes a system that implements the basic theory of 
congestion pricing and uses actual recorded operating costs of airlines 
to determine which airlines will (i) likely pay the price announced and 
fly, (ii) choose to delay the flight and eventually fly the flight in a 
less-congested time period, or (iii) cancel the flight.The research 
provides a new mechanism for calculating airline costs of delay as well 
as a mechanism for setting the congestion prices.

The results of imposing congestion prices are compared to other 
suggested rationing schemes to see the impact on airline costs, 
passenger throughput and passenger delay.The two alternative schemes 
chosen are Ration-by-Schedule (currently used by Air Traffic Management) 
and Ration-by-Distance (an approach that better reflects the airline's 
wish to fly their longest, most profitable flights).

A copy of this doctoral dissertation is on reserve at the Johnson Center 
Library.