I'll start with an example:
Boston has Logan (BOS) within the city limits. However, Manchester-Boston Regional (MHT), and Portsmouth International Airport at Pease (PSM) are sometimes mentioned as airports serving the "Boston area". It's obvious why; they're within an hour or so drive.
I am working on a project where I need to come up with a (scriptable) rule to estimate (roughly) the total "addressable population" for a given airport.
Let's say we want to know which cities (and therefore how many people) MHT (or BOS or PSM) serves.
I'll tell you how I'm estimating this at present: I'm looking up all cities within 100km (as the crow flies) of an airport, and including 100% of the population of any town up to 50km away. From 50-100km away, the "addressable population" begins at 100% for 50km and scales down to 0% at 100km (meaning for a town 75km away only half its population would included in the estimate). That's intended to roughly model the likelihood a potential passenger is going to see that airport as worth traveling to.
I was wondering if anyone here knows how the industry defines or thinks about this, if at all? A simple distance radius? An estimate of travel time to/from the airport? Something else? I realize some of it is just marketing, but if they're going to spend marketing dollars, there must be some logic to the choices.
If anyone has any insight, it's welcome!
Boston has Logan (BOS) within the city limits. However, Manchester-Boston Regional (MHT), and Portsmouth International Airport at Pease (PSM) are sometimes mentioned as airports serving the "Boston area". It's obvious why; they're within an hour or so drive.
I am working on a project where I need to come up with a (scriptable) rule to estimate (roughly) the total "addressable population" for a given airport.
Let's say we want to know which cities (and therefore how many people) MHT (or BOS or PSM) serves.
I'll tell you how I'm estimating this at present: I'm looking up all cities within 100km (as the crow flies) of an airport, and including 100% of the population of any town up to 50km away. From 50-100km away, the "addressable population" begins at 100% for 50km and scales down to 0% at 100km (meaning for a town 75km away only half its population would included in the estimate). That's intended to roughly model the likelihood a potential passenger is going to see that airport as worth traveling to.
I was wondering if anyone here knows how the industry defines or thinks about this, if at all? A simple distance radius? An estimate of travel time to/from the airport? Something else? I realize some of it is just marketing, but if they're going to spend marketing dollars, there must be some logic to the choices.
If anyone has any insight, it's welcome!
