Douglas S. Fearing
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Douglas Fearing is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Technology and Operations Management Unit, teaching the Technology and Operations Management course in the MBA required curriculum.
His research is directed at techniques for evaluating and improving the performance of complex systems, primarily in the airline industry. He is particularly interested in mitigating airport and airspace congestion by increasing the coordination between airlines and governmental managing agencies. Professor Fearing's paper on coordinating air traffic-flow management programs was awarded the Anna Valicek Medal by the airline industry group AGIFORS. A secondary research interest is applying performance evaluation techniques to sports management, and his coauthored work in this area has been highlighted in The Wall Street Journal and Slate.
Professor Fearing received his Ph.D. in operations research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was recognized for the quality of his teaching. After earning his bachelor's degree in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, he spent five years at Trilogy, a software company in Austin, Texas, working on engagements with Ford, British Airways, and Goodyear. Based on his sports management research, he has consulted for Titleist and the Tampa Bay Rays. Professor Fearing and his wife have two young children.
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Research Summary
Airline Schedule Disruptions
by
Douglas S. Fearing
Increasing congestion and frequent schedule disruptions throughout the National Air Transportation System, both at airports and en route, have led to significant flight and passenger delays. Professor Fearing's primary research focus is on measuring and reducing these costs. He approaches the problem of congestion and disruptions from a perspective that encompasses the concerns of all major stakeholders - regulators, airlines, and passengers - in order to expand the potential savings and to facilitate acceptance.
Performance Measurement
Professor Fearing has researched and developed new tools for measuring performance of the National Air Transportation System. These tools use statistical and optimization techniques, and incorporate the concerns of multiple stakeholders. One such tool is a novel and justifiable fairness metric for evaluating schedule allocation techniques used during severe disruptions. To measure passenger impacts and facilitate passenger-centric research endeavors, Professor Fearing has helped develop a statistical approach for estimating historical passenger travel and delays.
Improvement Opportunities
Using the tools described above, Professor Fearing has shown that there are significant opportunities for cost savings in the coordination of Traffic-Flow Management (TFM) programs. Specifically, he has shown that applying an optimization-based approach to managing these programs could lead to savings on the order of $50 million per year in the United States. The paper describing this research was selected by the airline industry group AGIFORS as the winner of its 2009 Anna Valicek Medal. His current research focuses on the trade-offs between capacity and predictability in the construction of these programs.
Keywords: performance measurement;
air transportation;
traffic flow management;
Air Transportation Industry;
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Research Summary
Sports Management
by
Douglas S. Fearing
Professor Fearing's secondary research interest in sports management shares an emphasis on developing new metrics to help understand and improve performance.
Keywords: sports management;
Sports Industry;