Competitive allocation of resources on a network: an agent-based model of air companies competing for the best routes

TL;DR

This paper introduces an agent-based model to analyze how airline companies compete for airspace resources on a network, considering different company types and network characteristics to understand equilibrium outcomes.

Contribution

It develops a stylized, network-based model of resource allocation among competing airlines, incorporating diverse company behaviors and analyzing equilibrium dependence on network features.

Findings

Equilibria vary with network topology and company types.

Mixed populations influence resource allocation outcomes.

Model provides insights into strategic airline behavior.

Abstract

We present a stylized model of the allocation of resources on a network. By considering as a concrete example the network of sectors of the airspace, where each node is a sector characterized by a maximal number of simultaneously present aircraft, we consider the problem of air companies competing for the allocation of the airspace. Each company is characterized by a cost function, weighting differently punctuality and length of the flight. We consider the model in the presence of pure and mixed populations of types of airline companies and we study how the equilibria depends on the characteristics of the network.