O’Hare Airport: An Investigation of the Relationship between Airline and Road Traffic

Abstract

Geography Information Systems (GIS) is used highly in transportation in order to improve traffic flow for the future. Chicago O’Hare is one of the busiest airports in the world. Thousands of airlines fly in and out of the airport monthly. With so many arrivals and departures of airlines comes an ample supply of automotive traffic. Often there are traffic jams in Chicago and near O’Hare. Some of these traffic jams might be related to airline traffic at O’Hare airport. There might be a correlation between the number of airline arrivals and departures with the traffic count near the airport. There could be a time lag in the correlation as well. The time lag might depend on if the flight is arriving or departing. The transportation industry could benefit from information like this. If there is a correlation it would be possible to determine how much traffic would be traveling through due to the airport. This would make estimating appropriate highway sizes easier for locations near airports.