Forecasting of taxi times: The case of Barcelona-El Prat airport

One of the challenges that air transport management is facing is to develop predictive tools for ground operations of aircraft, in particular of estimation of taxi times. The aim of this paper is to define a forecasting model for taxi times for a specific airport: Barcelona-El Prat. This model uses log-linear regression analysis to estimate taxi times with variables that can be computed before operation to account for route- and interaction-specific factors influencing taxi time. The resulting model has a strong predictive validity, but requires a sample size covering an extensive time of airport operations. The model results show that route-specific factors are useful to estimate taxi times, and the combination of stand and rapid exit variables (for landings) and runway (for take offs) accounts for a great part of the variability of taxi times.