An ASDE-X Based Tool for Surface Delay Measurements

Many traffic management initiatives (TMIs) are designed to trade enroute delay for surface delay. The accuracy of quantifying the benefit of these initiatives depends directly on the accuracy of the measured surface delay. The OPSNET order (JO 7210.55G) mandates that individual facilities identify their reportable taxi-out delay. The Federal Aviation Administration Office of Performance Analysis has made recommendations that surface delay should be calculated from Airport Surface Detection Equipment Model X (ASDE-X) surveillance data. In this paper, a tool is described that makes surveillance-based reportable delay at the facility level operationally feasible. This paper describes a clustering-based algorithm that minimizes measurement error while also providing human explainability.