Redesign of the European route network for sector-less

The increase in air traffic and the limited capacity of air traffic control services force us to think of a new way in which to control aircraft. An innovative ATM concept, called sector-less air traffic management, has been defined by the Eurocontrol Experimental Centre. In this concept the role of the controller is radically different from the current one: instead of having controllers controlling a sector, controllers are responsible for a limited number of aircraft, from departure to arrival in terminal areas. Within this framework, the European air space need to be redesigned in order to minimise the number of conflicts and to give an aeroplane the shortest route possible by providing a new route network. The approach proposed here is, starting from scratch, to provide a very simple route network and to improve it by using optimisation techniques. The generated route networks are evaluated in terms of length of trajectories weighted by the amount of aeroplanes using them and compared with the direct route network and the current one. Using this tool and a fast time air traffic simulator, the sector-less concept are evaluated in terms of capacity and delay due to conflicts. This also provides the route density of the network necessary for this concept.