Global Demand Forecast Model

Air transportation demand forecasting is a core element in aviation planning and policy decision making. NASA Langley Research Center addressed the need of a global forecast model to be integrated into the Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM) to fulfil the vision of the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) at NASA Headquarters to develop a picture of future demand worldwide. Future forecasts can be performed using a range of techniques depending on the data available and the scope of the forecast. Causal models are widely used as a forecasting tool by looking for relationships between historical demand and variables such as economic and population growth. The Global Demand Model is an econometric regression model that predicts the number of air passenger seats worldwide using the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), population, and airlines market share as the explanatory variables. GDP and Population are converted to 2.5 arc minute individual cell resolution and calculated at the airport level in the geographic area 60 nautical miles around the airport. The global demand model consists of a family of models, each airport is assigned the model that best fits the historical data. The assignment of the model is conducted through an algorithm that uses the R2 as the measure of Goodness-of-Fit in addition to a sanity check for the generated forecasts. The output of the model is the projection of the number of seats offered at each airport for every year up to the year 2040.