THE DYNAMIC PLANNER: THE SEQUENCER, SCHEDULER, AND RUNWAY ALLOCATOR 
FOR AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AUTOMATION

Gregory L. Wong


Abstract

The Dynamic Planner (DP) has been designed, implemented, and integrated
into the Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS) to assist Traffic
Management Coordinators (TMCs), in real time, with the task of planning
and scheduling arrival traffic approximately 35 to 200 nautical miles
from the destination airport. The TMC may input to the DP a series of
current and future scheduling constraints that reflect the operational
and environmental conditions of the airspace. Under these constraints,
the DP uses flight plans, track updates, and Estimated Time of Arrival
(ETA) predictions to calculate optimal runway assignments and arrival
schedules that help ensure an orderly, efficient, and conflict-free flow
of traffic into the terminal area. These runway assignments and
schedules can be shown directly to controllers or they can be used by
other CTAS tools to generate advisories to the controllers.
Additionally, the TMC and controllers may override the decisions made by
the DP for tactical considerations. The DP will adapt its computations
to accommodate these manual inputs.

This paper begins with an overview of CTAS in general and the Traffic
Management Advisor (TMA) tool in particular. It lists the DP's inputs
and outputs as well as the other CTAS software components required to
run the DP. The heart of the paper describes the principal algorithms
and data structures of the DP. This description includes a detailed
discussion of the design and operation of the scheduling, sequencing,
runway allocation, and miles-in-trail advisor modules of the DP. The
paper concludes with a description of the methodology used in the design
of the DP, the DP's current daily operational use to schedule real
air traffic, and future DP research.