Environmental Impact Analysis of Hub-and-Spoke Network Operation

Abstract

The hub-and-spoke network has demonstrated its economies of scale and scope in the rapid development of the civil aviation industry. In order to fit the development trend of green civil aviation, a series of environmental problems such as fuel consumption and pollutant emissions caused by air transportation cannot be ignored. Firstly, this paper selects six cities of Shenyang, Beijing, Qingdao, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou, and Nanjing as the research objects, collects the passenger flow and the distance information of the corresponding segment, determines the location of the hub airport, analyzes the operating environment of the aircraft in the hub-and-spoke network, establishes an aircraft emission assessment model, and calculates the mass of aircraft emissions and fuel consumption. Secondly, based on the calculation results, the comparison of aircraft emissions and fuel consumption between the hub-and-spoke network and the point-to-point network shows that the total carbon monoxide (CO) emissions are reduced by 35.84%, the total hydrocarbon compounds (HC) emissions are increased by 68.82%, and the total nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions are increased by 24.87%. The total mass of pollutants (including CO, HC, and NOx) decreased by 29.37%, and the total fuel consumption decreased by 68.17%. In general, the use of a hub-and-spoke network reduces the pollutant emissions and fuel consumption of aircraft as a whole while ensuring the lowest passenger transportation cost. Finally, based on the current international situation and the enhancement of people's awareness of environmental protection, a summary analysis of the hub-and-spoke network and the point-to-point network is obtained, and some enlightenment and research significance are obtained.