A Monte-Carlo simulation of potentially conflicting ground movements at a new international airport

Plans for a large new international airport propose that aircraft in need of maintenance must be towed to facilities across active aprons. An investigation is carried out for peak hour traffic of the likely amount of conflict between towed aircraft and arriving and departing aircraft. On the basis of reasonable assumptions and some known statistics, a statistical experiment using Monte-Carlo simulation is carried out to demonstrate that, contrary to first intuitive impressions, the amount of conflict, both in terms of the number of holds and the mean holding time, is low.