Developing gravity model for airline regional route modelling

Abstract

The gravity model is a method that is used by transportation researchers, airline network planners and analysts to explain how traffic is distributed between city pairs in correlation to the distance or travelling time between them, which as a result indicates the behaviour of travellers or the performance of the transport connection. How ever, the applicability of the model depends on the reliability of the results, which poses a major issue for researches. The major difficulty is to obtain comparable qualitative insights into the key parameters that are selected. This paper presents a possibility study for the use of the gravity model for regional route planning from the scientific point of view and suggests possibilities of gravity model calibration for airline network analysis including alternative methods for estimating the gravity potential of destinations and measurement of the influence of distance on the potential. The focus of the research is the ability to explain and forecast the development of regional air transportation routes in the commercial aviation network when there is a lack of recorded booking demand data.

Keyword : air transportation route planning, gravity model, regional aviation