Location and Number of Exit Taxiways

Since World War II the techniques of operations research have been applied to many fields of endeavor. More recently these techniques have been applied to the evaluation of airport configuration from the standpoint of aircraft traffic potential. This paper describes an effort in this direction. The past several years have witnessed a very rapid rise in aircraft traffic at airports. Concern lest the airport be the limiting factor in the traffic-handling capacity of the airport-airways system prompted the Research Division of the Bureau of Research and Development, Federal Aviation Agency, to sponsor a study, the objectives of which were (a) to determine the operational feasibility of high-speed exit taxiways as a means of increasing the acceptance rate of a runway, and (b) to determine the proper location of the exits along the runway. The operational feasibility of high-speed exits was evaluated by live tests with aircraft.