Optimizing the Airport Passengers’ Delay Through Improving Aircraft Arrival Time: Terminal Gate Assignment and Remote Area Reassignment

Abstract

This research investigates fixed gate assignment at airports and proposes remote stand area reassignment to improve aircraft arrival times during airport peak operations. Integrating airport gate assignment problem (AGAP) with gate capacity and gate assignment requires collaboration between airport management and stakeholders. A hierarchical framework at the level of Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) responds to runway queues to minimize aircraft delays and optimize aircraft and passengers travel time. VISSIM software modelling, supported by literature review and interviews, validated the model using real-time data for Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 3 case study. The investigation considered delays on a single aircraft and single runway at arrival patterns with di = 0min. and di ≥15min. (di: delay in min). The proposed strategy of reassigning delayed aircraft to remote stand area (denoted as Model 2) improved passengers total travel time for successive aircrafts arriving at the assigned terminal gate in Model 1 by 56.8%. However, this strategy resulted in in a 47.5% increase in aircraft delays compared to assigning delayed aircraft to a terminal gate, and a 54.67% increase in passenger delays due to busing them to the terminal gate. Changing the bus assignment pattern from five trips (one bus per trip) to three trips (1+2+2 buses per trip) caused a 4.49% improvement in the total travel time for buses within the network. This research demonstrates that transferring delayed aircraft to remote stands successfully improves the overall arrival time for successive arrived aircrafts at terminal gate and reduces passengers delay. Keywords: Airport Gate Assignment Problem AGAP, Remote Stand Reassignment, Aircraft Travel Time, Passengers Delay.