The proposed marketplace has application in commercial ATM both in the U.S. and abroad. In the U.S. ATM market, any resource broker attempting to establish a slot market will require the tools and procedures output by Phases 2 and 3 of this SBIR to act as a central processor and tracker of ATM-induced flight controls. At the same time, U.S. air carriers will require tools with which to monitor and manage their flight schedules and make informed, effective decisions for exchanging resources. Estimates of costs due to delays range from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars per year. The opportunity to save even a fraction of these costs creates significant motivation for airline participation. It is reasonable to assume that the number of carriers willing to participate in this system will be comparable to the number signed up as active members of the collaborative decision making (CDM) program. The proposed SBIR directly benefits NASA's Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) Air Traffic Management Airspace Project, whose primary goal is to develop integrated solutions for a safe, efficient and high-capacity airspace system. Efficient airspace allocation requires early research in market-based mechanisms for design of the next-generation air transportation system.
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