Vertiport Selection in Hybrid Air-Ground Transportation Networks via Mathematical Programs with Equilibrium Constraints

Urban air mobility is a concept that promotes aerial modes of transport in urban areas. In these areas, the location and capacity of the vertiports--where the travelers embark and disembark the aircraft--not only affect the flight delays of the aircraft, but can also aggravate the congestion of ground vehicles by creating extra ground travel demands. We introduce a mathematical model for selecting the location and capacity of the vertiports that minimizes the traffic congestion in hybrid air-ground transportation networks. Our model is based on a mathematical program with bilinear equilibrium constraints. Furthermore, we show how to compute a global optimal solution of this mathematical program by solving a mixed integer linear program. We demonstrate our results via the Anaheim transportation network model, which contains more than 400 nodes and 900 links.