Sketch Models for Air Transport Demand Estimation: Case Study for Regional Airports System in Italy

Air travel demand at regional airports must be estimated to support transportation planning. Simplified models are needed for acceptable estimates of travel demand even if a small amount of data from immediate information sources is used. To this purpose, regressive nonlinear and monomodal statistical models were considered, and different model specifications were investigated and analyzed, assuming various functional forms as well as different sets of potential explicative variables. The airport system of the Apulia region (southern Italy) and the demand flows from Apulia toward important Italian regions such as Lombardy, Latium, and Veneto were studied. Statistical analyses were carried out with cheap data, normally available on the Internet websites of the air companies or agencies. Through a trial-and-error procedure for each model, the statistical significance and the performances of considered variables and of the single model were determined. The calibration phase showed the effectiveness of some variables that were indirectly representative of the average income in the chosen area. The proposed models include variables describing both land use characteristics and transport supply systems relevant to the considered regions as well as the level of service of the air transport. Considering the small amount of data and the cheap information sources, the results obtained are interesting, and the best-performing model could be used for preliminary study as well as starting point for more detailed, accurate, and expensive estimation tools.