Dynamic cost indexing

This paper describes the development of a generic tool for dynamic cost indexing (DCI), which encompasses the ability to manage flight delay costs on a dynamic basis, trading accelerated fuel burn against ‘cost of time’. Many airlines have significant barriers to identifying which costs should be included in ‘cost of time’ calculations and how to quantify them. The need is highlighted to integrate historical passenger delay and policy data with real-time passenger connections data. The absence of industry standards for defining and interfacing necessary tools is recognised. Delay recovery decision windows and ATC cooperation are key constraints. DCI tools could also be used in the pre-departure phase, and may offer environmental decision support functionality: which could be used as a differentiating technology required for access to designated, future ‘green’ airspace. Short-term opportunities for saving fuel and/or reducing emissions are also identified.

Accessibility Instruments In Planning Practice: Bridging The Implementation Gap

Accessibility concepts are increasingly acknowledged as fundamental to understand cities and urban regions. Accordingly, accessibility instruments have been recognised as valuable support tools for land-use and transport planning. However, despite the relatively large number of instruments available in the literature, they are not widely used in planning practice. This paper aims to explore why accessibility instruments are not widely used in planning practice. To this end, we focus our research on perceived user-friendliness and usefulness of accessibility instruments. First, we surveyed some instrument developers, providing an overview of the characteristics of accessibility instruments available and on developers’ perceptions of their user-friendliness in planning practice. Second, we brought together developers and planning practitioners in some local workshops across Europe and Australia, where participants were asked to use insights provided by accessibility instruments for the development of planning strategies. We found that most practitioners are convinced of the usefulness of accessibility instruments in planning practice, as they generate new and relevant insights for planners. Findings suggest that not only user-friendliness problems but mainly organisational barriers and lack of institutionalisation of accessibility instruments, are the main causes of the implementation gap. Thus user-friendliness improvement may provide limited contributions to the successful implementation of accessibility concepts in planning practice. In fact, there seems to be more to gain from the active and continued engagement of instrument developers with planning practitioners and the institutionalisation of accessibility planning.