Analyzing, modeling, and assessing the performances of land use by airports

The air transport system consists of airports, airlines, and air traffic control (ATC). Airports are considered the system infrastructure occupying a certain area of land. This can be roughly divided into (i) the airside area containing runways, taxiways, and the apron-gate complex and (ii) the landside area including passenger and cargo terminals; space, buildings, facilities, and equipment for airport/airline-related activities; as well as the overall infrastructure of the airport ground access systems. Most airports are confronted with challenges such as incompatibility of land use and a lack of free land to expand to accommodate growing demand efficiently, effectively, and safely. To adequately deal with these challenges, an effective and compatible plan of airport land use needs to be developed with components such as (i) the airport design and operational criteria; (ii) requirements for safety of flights and unique land-use provision(s); and (iii) performances of land use. This article deals with analyzing, modeling, and assessing the physical/spatial, operational, economic, social, and environmental performances of land use by airport airside and landside areas. For such a purpose, a convenient methodology based on the indicators and their measures of performances of land use is developed and applied to selected airport cases.