Effective local dynamic routing strategy for air route networks

With the rapid development of air transportation, network service ability has attracted a lot of attention in academe. Aiming to improve the throughput of the air route network (ARN), we propose an effective local dynamic routing strategy in this paper. Several factors, such as the routing distance, the geographical distance and the real-time local traffic, are taken into consideration. When the ARN is in the normal free-flow state, the proposed strategy can recover the shortest path routing (SPR) strategy. When the ARN undergoes congestion, the proposed strategy changes the paths of flights based on the real-time local traffic information. The throughput of the Chinese air route network (CARN) is evaluated. Results confirm that the proposed strategy can significantly improve the throughput of CARN. Meanwhile, the increase in the average flying distance and time is tiny. Results also indicate the importance of the distance related factors in a routing strategy designed for the ARN.