Over the past several decades, commercial air traffic has been growing at a far greater rate than airport capacity, causing airports to become increasingly congested. How can we accommodate this increased traffic and at the same time alleviate traffic delays resulting from congestion? The response outside the US has been to set a maximum number of slots and use administrative procedures to allocate these among competing airlines, with the most important consideration being 'grandfather rights' to existing carriers. The United States, on the other hand, has used administrative procedures to allocate slots at only four airports. In all other cases, flights have been handled on a first-come, first-served basis, with aircraft queuing for the privilege of landing or taking off from a congested airport. While recognizing the advantages of slot systems in lessening delays, economists have criticized both approaches as being sub-optimal, and have advocated procedures such as slot auctions, peak-load pricing and slot trading to better utilize congested airports. Edited by an international team of air transport economists and drawing on an impressive list of contributors, Airport Slots provides an extremely comprehensive treatment of the subject. It considers the methods currently used to allocate slots and applies economic analysis to each. The book then explains various schemes to increase public welfare by taxing or pricing congestion, and describes alternate slot-allocation schemes, most notably slot auctions. In addition, Airport Slots outlines the complexities involved in slot-allocation methods, including the requirement for multiple slots - a take-off slot at London Heathrow is useless unless there is a landing slot available at Frankfurt for a London Frankfurt flight. Finally, the book explores the economic pitfalls of slot-allocation schemes; for example, controls may not be required if external delay costs are internalized by a dominant carrier at its hub. Airport Slots provides a valuable contribution to the debate on how best to limit airport congestion. The book's comprehensive treatment of the subject matter provides the reader with a 'one-stop' volume to explore airport congestion and slot-allocation schemes, offering valuable insights to academics and practitioners alike.

This paper compares results obtained from three empirical models of airport congestion pricing. Morrison (1983) and Morrison and Winston (1989) implement standard peak-load pricing models using econometrically estimated demand and delay functions. Vickrey (1969) and Arnott, et al. (1991, 1993) develop bottleneck models with deterministic queues to provide structural models of intertemporal traffic adjustments in response to congestion pricing and changes in capacity. Daniel (1995) combines a bottleneck model with a time-dependent stochastic queuing model. This paper applies each of these models to Daniel's airport traffic data. While equilibria from all three models approximate the existing traffic patterns in the absence congestion fees, their different assumptions about delay functions and intertemporal shifting of demand lead to significantly different fee schedules. We conclude that modeling intertemporal substitution and stochastic traffic and delay produces more realistic responses of traffic patterns to congestion pricing and causes significant differences in the optimal fee structures.

The SAGE Handbook of Transport Studies is an authoritative survey of contemporary transportation systems examined in terms of economic, social, and technical issues, as well as environmental challenges. Incorporating an extensive range of approaches - from modes, terminals, planning and policy to more recent developments related to supply chain management, information systems and sustainability/ecology - the work provides a cohesive and extensive overview of transport studies. Authored by international experts in their field, each individual chapter bridges a broad range of conceptual, theoretical and geographical perspectives, and the Handbook is divided into six sections: • Transport in the Global World • Transport in Regions and Localities • Transport, Economy and Society • Transport Policy • Transport Networks and Models • Transport and the Environment This Handbook will be an indispensible resource for academics, planners, and policy-makers.

Taking a comprehensive approach to two central, closely intertwined themes in the field of transport economics, this illuminating Handbook recognizes the critical socioeconomic importance of transport pricing and financing.