How the geometry of arrival routes can influence sequencing

When introducing route structures to address the drawbacks of traditional vectoring techniques, the main challenge in high density environments is to guarantee an effective use of these routes during traffic peaks, where some form of path stretching is needed. The study relied on two series of iterative small scale human in the loop simulations conducted at the Experimental Centre with Paris CDG controllers. It enabled the identification of key design characteristics in terms of minimum distance to merge point, and angle between downwind and base routes. Controller feedback and initial analysis showed that the resulting route designs can facilitate sequencing even under high traffic peaks, drastically reduce vectoring and keep trajectories away from the axis area. The study also provides an initial analysis based on the evolution of the distance that may be re-used to assess new designs. Next steps will be to assess the applicability in the real Paris CDG environment which would require adaptations of the characteristics identified.