Abstract—Considering a worldwide tendency, air transports are growing very fast and many changes have taken place in planning, management and decision making process. Given the complexity of airport operation, the best use of existing capacity is the key driver of efficiency and productivity. This paper deals with the evaluation framework for the ground access at airports, by using a set of mode choice indicators providing key messages towards airport’s ground access performance. The application presents results for a sample of 12 European airports, illustrating recommendations to define policy and improve service for the air transport access chain. Keywords—Air transport chain, airport ground access, airport access performance, airport policy. I. INTRODUCTION N the early days of the of civil aviation, the ground access to air transport system presented no substantial issue to travelers and authorities. Most of the airports were located on the end or the periphery of the city it served and no activities were located at airport territory [1]. Therefore, ground access to airports was simple and there was no need for sophisticated plans and operation to access airport. From that time, the picture has totally changed and the access to airports constitutes one of the key operational success factors, directly, linked to reliable and resilience of air transport system [2], [3]. Because of the rapid urbanization, the high growth of car ownership and the increase of generalized cost for air travelers, the airport ground access may deliver to air traveler’s huge delay and high cost to reach airport facilities. In addition, the growing interest on increasing the non- aeronautical revenues supports decisions for new activities in airport land-side area resulting in more traffic to/from airport. Also, the strong tendency on airport land-side area commercialization by locating trade, services and industrial activities results essential benefits in terms of financials but also traffic and congestion [4]. In the modern society, transport industry spends considerable amounts of resources and capitals to improve accessibility and meet the needs of different market segments. Considering a worldwide tendency, air transports are growing at a rate that saturates the airports capacity, resulting in mounting congestion and delay on air and on ground. Planners and managers argue that airport ground access performance impacts upon the whole air transport chain, therefore, the D. J. Dimitriou is Assistant Professor in Department of Economics, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece, Panepistimioupoli, 69100 Komotini, (phone: +30 25310 39507, fax: +30 25310 39830, e-mail: ddimitri@econ.duth.gr). concept of integration between the air and ground transport services is very crucial towards assessment of the air transport attractiveness and sustainability [2]. Airport connection and distribution systems are highly complex, especially, for airports serving over 5 million passengers, usually, because of the complicated ground access network serving their large catchment area in terms of space and/or population density. Typically, the ground access networks are characterized as ‘many to many’, where passengers and cargo from many different points go to many district destinations and the opposite. However, into the scale of strategic planning, the ground access system could be simplified as ‘many to one’, where the key challenge for the passengers is to define the optimum or the most valuable transport option. The airport layout, the terminal location and the mobility characteristics of ground flows into airport territory increase the complexity to manage and control traffic, while the mitigation measures and the adaptation policies towards aviation industry sustainability oversize the complication in planning and traffic control in terms of transport system flexibility and availability [5]. The key objective of this paper deals with the analysis framework to review operation capability and pricing for ground access to airport. Based on transportation planning principles and transport system operational capabilities for the different transport options offered to/from airports, a set of high level indicators is introduced to assess policies and competitiveness of the offered transport services to meet the demand needs and local targets. Conventional wisdom is to provide key messages to planners, decision makers and stakeholders on airports’ ground access efficiency, as well as, to review the effectiveness of the applied transport policy. II. KEY DEFINITIONS ON AIRPORT ACCESS Getting to the airport can be a challenge. For the point of view of air travelers, this part of the trip is the most annoying and stressful part of the whole journey, especially, at peak hours where congestion and delays take place. Sometimes, the airport traffic patterns is totally different with the traffic patterns of the access system connecting airport to city, making traveler’s and visitors to be confusing about the journey time, cost and the most suitable transport option, [4]. In addition, for the airport employee society, the daily trip to/from airport can be expensive in terms of time or money. All above is supporting the opinion that ground access to airport is a very important factor of the airport attractiveness [5]. Competitiveness and Pricing Policy Assessment for Resilience Surface Access System at Airports Dimitrios J. Dimitriou I World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Transport and Vehicle Engineering Vol:11, No:2, 2017 256 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 11(2) 2017 scholar.waset.org/1307-6892/10006748 International Science Index, Transport and Vehicle Engineering Vol:11, No:2, 2017 waset.org/Publication/10006748