Reassessing the ICAO’s Standard Taxi/Ground Idle Time: A Statistical Analysis of Taxi Times at 71 U.S. Hub Airports
Taxi time plays a critical role in airport capacity, aircraft fuel consumption, and emissions. It is defined as the time from touchdown to the gate and from the gate to liftoff. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) established a standard taxi/ground idle time-in-mode (TIM) of 26 min...
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MDPI AG
2025-03-01
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| Series: | Aerospace |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/12/3/220 |
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| author | Jiansen Wang Shantanu Gupta Mary E. Johnson |
| author_facet | Jiansen Wang Shantanu Gupta Mary E. Johnson |
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| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Taxi time plays a critical role in airport capacity, aircraft fuel consumption, and emissions. It is defined as the time from touchdown to the gate and from the gate to liftoff. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) established a standard taxi/ground idle time-in-mode (TIM) of 26 min in the landing and take-off (LTO) cycle for modeling turbine engine aircraft emissions. However, actual taxi times vary significantly across airports. While a simplified standard streamlines emissions modeling, the 26 min assumption may not accurately reflect real-world conditions. While using airport-specific taxi times may not always be practical, hub classifications of U.S. commercial airports may affect taxi time and serve as a compromise between airport-specific taxi times and a simplified standard. Therefore, this study statistically analyzed Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data from 71 U.S. commercial hub airports to compare reported taxi times with the ICAO’s standard and assess the influence of airport hub classifications. The exploratory findings indicate that the 26 min ICAO taxi/idle TIM does not represent reported taxi times at 70 of the 71 sampled airports. Moreover, total taxi time varied by hub classification: small-hub airports had a mean taxi time of 19.82 min (median: 18 min), medium-hub airports had a mean taxi time of 19.72 min (median: 18.25 min), and large hubs had a mean taxi time of 26.98 min (median: 25.08 min). When hub classifications were ignored, the overall mean taxi time was 23.78 min (median: 22 min), indicating a statistically significant difference between the ICAO’s standard 26 min assumption and the observed taxi times at most airports. |
| format | Article |
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| institution | DOAJ |
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| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-03-01 |
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| spelling | doaj-art-2fdcc83173c6434f9f2c6eaa0a22d9e42025-08-20T02:41:51ZengMDPI AGAerospace2226-43102025-03-0112322010.3390/aerospace12030220Reassessing the ICAO’s Standard Taxi/Ground Idle Time: A Statistical Analysis of Taxi Times at 71 U.S. Hub AirportsJiansen Wang0Shantanu Gupta1Mary E. Johnson2College of Natural and Applied Science, University of Houston-Victoria, Victoria, TX 77901, USASchool of Aviation, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43402, USASchool of Aviation and Transportation Technology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USATaxi time plays a critical role in airport capacity, aircraft fuel consumption, and emissions. It is defined as the time from touchdown to the gate and from the gate to liftoff. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) established a standard taxi/ground idle time-in-mode (TIM) of 26 min in the landing and take-off (LTO) cycle for modeling turbine engine aircraft emissions. However, actual taxi times vary significantly across airports. While a simplified standard streamlines emissions modeling, the 26 min assumption may not accurately reflect real-world conditions. While using airport-specific taxi times may not always be practical, hub classifications of U.S. commercial airports may affect taxi time and serve as a compromise between airport-specific taxi times and a simplified standard. Therefore, this study statistically analyzed Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data from 71 U.S. commercial hub airports to compare reported taxi times with the ICAO’s standard and assess the influence of airport hub classifications. The exploratory findings indicate that the 26 min ICAO taxi/idle TIM does not represent reported taxi times at 70 of the 71 sampled airports. Moreover, total taxi time varied by hub classification: small-hub airports had a mean taxi time of 19.82 min (median: 18 min), medium-hub airports had a mean taxi time of 19.72 min (median: 18.25 min), and large hubs had a mean taxi time of 26.98 min (median: 25.08 min). When hub classifications were ignored, the overall mean taxi time was 23.78 min (median: 22 min), indicating a statistically significant difference between the ICAO’s standard 26 min assumption and the observed taxi times at most airports.https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/12/3/220LTO cycletaxi timesairport hubsairport operationsstatistical analysis |
| spellingShingle | Jiansen Wang Shantanu Gupta Mary E. Johnson Reassessing the ICAO’s Standard Taxi/Ground Idle Time: A Statistical Analysis of Taxi Times at 71 U.S. Hub Airports Aerospace LTO cycle taxi times airport hubs airport operations statistical analysis |
| title | Reassessing the ICAO’s Standard Taxi/Ground Idle Time: A Statistical Analysis of Taxi Times at 71 U.S. Hub Airports |
| title_full | Reassessing the ICAO’s Standard Taxi/Ground Idle Time: A Statistical Analysis of Taxi Times at 71 U.S. Hub Airports |
| title_fullStr | Reassessing the ICAO’s Standard Taxi/Ground Idle Time: A Statistical Analysis of Taxi Times at 71 U.S. Hub Airports |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reassessing the ICAO’s Standard Taxi/Ground Idle Time: A Statistical Analysis of Taxi Times at 71 U.S. Hub Airports |
| title_short | Reassessing the ICAO’s Standard Taxi/Ground Idle Time: A Statistical Analysis of Taxi Times at 71 U.S. Hub Airports |
| title_sort | reassessing the icao s standard taxi ground idle time a statistical analysis of taxi times at 71 u s hub airports |
| topic | LTO cycle taxi times airport hubs airport operations statistical analysis |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/12/3/220 |
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