System-level Environmental Performance of the U.S. Next Generation Air Transportation System 1 Comparison of Noise, Air Quality, and Fuel/CO 2 Performance to Possible Goals

The environmental impacts of several new U.S. Next Generation Air Transportation System scenarios have been quantitatively evaluated for noise, air-quality, fuel-efficiency, and CO 2 impacts. Several principal findings are emerging: (1) Using FAA demand projections and NextGen-based estimated future airport and airspace capacities, 2025 air traffic may be about the same as 2005 in terms of number of flights, but may have total seat-distance flown about 40% higher; (2) NextGen operational improvements such as optimized-profile descents and improved required navigational performance have beneficial effects on fuel efficiency, air quality, and noise, although noise effects at some airports can be less than anticipated due to counterbalancing factors; (3) Addition of advanced engine and airframe technologies provides substantial additional reductions in noise and air-quality impacts, and further improves fuel efficiency; (4) A 2025 noise goal of system-wide reduction of about 4% per year in population exposed above 65 dB DNL is exceeded; (5) A 2025 fuel-efficiency goal of 1% per year reduction is not attained for the fuel/distance form of the fuel efficiency metric (the fuel/seat-distance metric is currently being analyzed); (6) Although an air-quality goal is not yet formulated, a goal for local NOx emissions of 1% percent per year reduction would not be attained; (7) Overall air-transport "product", as measured by total seat (payload) distance, increases by about 40% relative to 2005, but total fuel consumption (and CO 2 production using conventional fuels) stay about the same using NextGen operational capabilities and advanced engine/airframe technologies (acceleration of technology insertion could further reduce total fuel consumption in 2025 by about 10%); and (8) For the range of scenarios examined in this analysis, the magnitude and structure of the demand forecast have a more significant impact on environmental results than any single improvement, including new aircraft technologies. The U.S. Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) seeks to enable substantial traffic growth, with simultaneous improvements in environmental performance and sustainability. The Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) was created to plan for transforming the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS) and to integrate the efforts of the Federal government and the aviation industry to achieve the desired results. The responsibilities of the JPDO's Interagency Portfolio and Systems Analysis (IPSA) Division include analyses of future operations to assess overall system performance for a variety of potential future NextGen scenarios in terms of a battery of different metrics. IPSA supported the research reported here which quantitatively evaluates the noise, air quality, and fuel-efficiency impacts of NextGen under several different scenarios that embody moderate growth, both with and without NextGen capabilities. This is part of an on-going effort to consistently evaluate environmental performance of NextGen as envisioned operational and technological improvements evolve, and as different levels of feasible traffic growth are explored. This work extends efforts reported earlier (1) with new NextGen scenarios, revised assessments of operational improvements, and improved estimates of engine/airframe technology effects.