Demand-Driven Evaluation of an Airport Airtaxi Shuttle Service for the City of Frankfurt

Abstract

The CORUS-XUAM project defined three two-way U-space corridors linking Frankfurt Airport’s Terminal 2 on the city outskirts with the city-center Trade Fair. These corridors avoid the approach cones of the northern and central runways and bypass hospital no-fly zones and large buildings. In our previous studies, we first used fast-time simulations to evaluate the U-space routing and its operating concept, based on historical air traffic data. Included were arriving and departing airplanes as well as police, and medical helicopters throughout the city. The focus was on the limitations of the airspace, avoiding conflicts with other airspace users and between the airtaxis using a different corridor or delaying the departure, as well as determining the throughput potential of such a corridor system. Building on our previous studies, this study incorporates higher-fidelity traffic simulation data and an updated demand analysis for the airtaxi shuttle service. Our new sizing analysis reveals that ground operations typically, not airspace capacity, constitute the primary bottleneck.