Assessing the environmental impact of aircraft taxiing technologies

Abstract

This paper assesses the environmental impact of various technologies and/or strategies for aircraft taxiing. The paper considers a standard taxiing route with four stops and general taxiway characteristics and breaks down the taxiing process into a mathematical model throughout which the distance, energy requirements, fuel consumption and emissions are computed. Several aircraft taxiing methods including full-engine, single-engine, tow trucks and onboard electrical propulsion techniques are investigated thus highlighting a technology route towards clean aircraft taxiing. The results obtained in the paper shows that tow trucks and onboard techniques consume less fuel compared to the full-engine and single-taxiing and produce lower fuel emissions. These should therefore be considered as alternative candidates for improving the environmental impact of aircraft taxiing.