AIRPORT CHOICE IN A CONSTRAINT WORLD: DISCRETE CHOICE MODELS AND CAPACITY CONSTRAINTS

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to present a possible approach to include capacityrnconstraints in discrete choice models without at least some capacity-related variablesrnmissing, like e.g. the price of a commodity. Airport choice models often do not containrnair fares because of measurement difficulties as air fares are often not included inrnpassenger surveys and thus essential information regarding ticket price is lost to thernresearcher. Since air fares vary more across ticket categories at a given airport thanrna ticket category varies across different airports, air fare related information cannotrnbe reconstructed in many cases by the researcher. However, capacity constraints arernbecoming increasingly more important and thus including capacity constraints inrnairport choice models is indicated in some cases.rnThe model approach is based on individual utility maximisation and thus fits into therndiscrete choice framework. Furthermore, nonlinear programming techniques arernemployed to find a feasible solution regarding capacity constraints. Thereby, detailedrnstatements on how limited airport capacity changes individual air traveller behaviourrnwith regard to airport choice are possible. The paper concludes with a simplernexample to demonstrate the methodology and show the impact of limited airportrncapacity on airport choice of air travellers.