The National Planning Division of the Office of Airport Planning and Programming (APP-400), through the Office of System Capacity (ASC-1), requested that the Modeling and Analysis Group (ACB-320) provide technical support to develop a consistent method for calculating Annual Service Volume (ASV) and apply this method to determine ASVs initially for the top 30 U.S. commercial airports, and later expanded to the top 50 airports and selected others. In the past, airport consultants used various methods to determine ASVs. This resulted in ASV calculations on an inconsistent basis and thus useful comparisons between airports could not be made. In the fifth phase of this effort, 15 airports were analyzed by ACB-320 using the same agreed upon consistent analysis method as in the original top 30 airports as identified by APP-400. The original top 30 airports were completed in three phases consisting of 14, 11 and 5 airports. The fourth phase, completed in 2001, consisted of an additional 6 airports being analyzed. The purpose of these studies is to develop ASVs for the airports using their present configuration and procedures as a base, and then compute ASVs for planned runway expansion and revised procedures to indicate future airport capacity.

APP-400 expressed the desire that the calculation technique be consistent between airports and reflect the actual demand and fleet mixes presently at the airports. To meet these objectives, ACT-320 decided to apply the same models and techniques as used in the Airport Capacity Enhancement Design Team studies. Demand schedules are developed from recent airline scheduling information supplemented with military, general aviation (GA), and air cargo flight counts from the Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower logs. The Runway Delay Simulation Model (RDSIM) was selected as the simulation model to be used. Inputs relating to separation and aircraft speeds and characteristics are consistent and standard for all airports. Delay values for each configuration and weather condition are developed through RDSIM simulations for the present daily demand schedule and are put on an annual basis by weighting the results for each configuration by its annual use. The simulated instrument flight rules (IFR) demand, in some cases, is less than the simulated visual flight rules (VFR) demand and reflects those small aircraft not capable of IFR operation. Once having the initial delay results, and maintaining the present hourly demand profile and fleet mix, simulations are performed with the demand schedule being proportionately increased and decreased to derive additional annual delay estimates in order to develop a demand/delay curve for determining ASVs.

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