System and method for estimating aircraft flight delay
| Title: | System and method for estimating aircraft flight delay |
|---|---|
| Patent Number: | 7,065,443 |
| Publication Date: | June 20, 2006 |
| Appl. No: | 10/422157 |
| Application Filed: | April 24, 2003 |
| Abstract: | A method and system estimate, in real time, the amount of any delay in departure of an aircraft flight from an airport. Various embodiments include receiving in a first computer process a conditions input that includes at least one member of a set including departure airport conditions, arrival airport conditions, and fleet conditions; and estimating in a second computer process the amount of delay based on the conditions input. User interfaces and data structures are also provided. |
| Inventors: | Flynn, Lorraine (Newton, MA, US); Flynn, Mary (Newton, MA, US); Steinberg, James (Melrose, MA, US) |
| Assignees: | RLM Software, Inc. (Boston, MA, US) |
| Claim: | 1. A method of deriving, as a function of weather, the capacity of an airport to handle aircraft departures and aircraft arrivals, the method comprising: providing historical flight data for airport, over a plurality of specified time intervals, including actual departures and actual arrivals, weather conditions, and demand for departures and demand for arrivals; selecting occasions in such intervals when demand for departures and demand for such arrivals exceeds actual arrivals and actual departures; quantizing weather conditions for such occasions to produce quantized data identifying weather conditions for each such occasion; and utilizing statistical analysis of the historical data by identifying weather variables having a statistically significant relationship to numbers of departures or arrivals in such intervals to determine capacity of the airport to handle aircraft departures and aircraft arrivals as a function of quantized weather values. |
| Claim: | 2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein utilizing statistical analysis to determine capacity of the airport includes assuming, for each quantized weather value, a total capacity for departures and arrivals, such total capacity being the sum of arrival capacity and departure capacity. |
| Claim: | 3. A method according to claim 2 , wherein assuming such total capacity further includes assuming a priority for providing arrival capacity sufficient to service arrival demand ahead of providing departure capacity sufficient to service departure demand. |
| Claim: | 4. A method according to claim 1 , further comprising using weather variables identified as statistically significant as candidate variables in a multivariate statistical model to predict capacity. |
| Claim: | 5. A method according to claim 4 , further comprising combining categories of a variable to achieve predictive discrimination in numbers of departures or arrivals in instances when the categories taken individually do not show significant predictive discrimination. |
| Current U.S. Class: | 701/120 |
| Patent References Cited: | 4774670 September 1988 Palmieri 4899157 February 1990 Sanford et al. 5051910 September 1991 Liden 5265023 November 1993 Sokkappa 5448243 September 1995 Bethke et al. 6049754 April 2000 Beaton et al. 6580998 June 2003 Flynn et al. 2327517 January 1999 |
| Other References: | Haerne, et al, “Airline Performance Modelling to Support Schedule Development: An Application Case Study”, Proceedings of the 1988 Winter Simulations Conference, XP010304619 the whole document, no date. cited by other Wieland, F., “Parallel Simulation for Aviation Applications”, Simulation Conference Proceedings, 1988, Winter, Washington, DC, USA Dec. 13-16, 1998, IEEE, US pp. 1191-1198, XP010319562. cited by other |
| Primary Examiner: | Beaulieu, Yonel |
| Attorney, Agent or Firm: | Bromberg & Sunstein LLP |
| Accession Number: | edspgr.07065443 |
| Database: | USPTO Patent Grants |
| Language: | English |
|---|