The airport area of any city is yet another hub of transportation activities. With constantly increasing number of peoples opting for travel by air for business, leisure and other purposes the steep escalation in number of flights being operated in each city, each day has grown manifold. In some of the major cities around the world there is non stop landing and taking off of lights.

When airport is fully operational there are several activities which influence the flow of traffic. Thousands of air travelers and frequent flyers need to reach the airports in private cars or public taxis, minivans, buses, metro trains, buses and other shuttle services. And all people who land at airport from different cities need to travel to different parts of city again using various modes of transport.

Added to this is the movement of flight crews of airline companies, the airport personnel of various departments, the caterers engaged in providing food and beverages for travelers, the fire personnel, security personnel, the people engaged in cargo handling, servicing of aircraft, infrastructure at the airport. There are also cargo and courier flights operations, which again necessitates their operators and staff to move in and out of the airport on duty.

The staff of oil companies, who maintain the supply of aviation fuel at different times of the day are yet another team whose movement is very essential to the operation of flights and therefore they too add to the traffic at the airport. All these give us a good idea about the growing traffic scenario around the airport which has its own implication on traffic movement within the city.

As passengers and people associated with airport activities keep crisscrossing on the city roads, they add to the traffic imbroglio. The airport traffic is also continuous and continues through the day and night all year around.

Though the airport may have been well planned and constructed with proper roads which are broad, adequate and well linked and laid so that the airport traffic smoothly integrate with city traffic, the traffic management can still be become very challenging. In many developing countries, where airport have expanded considerably owing to exigency over a short period of time, without comparable improvement in the infrastructure the situation prevailing is grim.

According to 2009 statistics of world’s busiest airports by number of people using the airport are:

According to, 2009 statistics of Asia’s busiest airports by number of people using the airport are:

According to, 2009 statistics of India’s busiest airports by number of people using the airport are:

As per certain projections, by 2020, Indian airports are estimated to handle

• 100 million passengers
• Including 60 million domestic passengers
• Cargo in the range of 3.4 million tones per annum

The Indian civil aviation sector is showing an extraordinary growth rate in the last few years. In 2005-06, the passenger traffic rose by 25-30% and is expected to grow by 25% year-on-year over the next five years. Such a pace of growth in air traffic has however resulted in a strain on the aviation infrastructure, which is already stretched- resulting in traffic congestions and delays at majority of the airports. The average number of flights operated in New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport is 700 flights and in Mumbai International Airport, it is 650 flights.

The day to day increase in number of vehicles on the road and the ever lengthening queue of cars at road intersection is a matter of serious concern. It has become a daunting task for traffic regulators to resolve these daily issues. When traffic flow is affected, congestion builds up resulting in traffic jams and chaos. This is followed by road rage, commotion, conflicts accidents and so on.

As a consequence travel time increases, travel schedule gets out of gear and drivers lose their patience as they get delayed. And as the traffic that was bottled is released, there is rash driving, over speeding and so on. These situations pose a great challenge to traffic controllers.