Analysis of aircraft ground traffic flow and gate utilisation using a hybrid dynamic gate and taxiway assignment algorithm

Abstract

The rapid increase in the demand for air transportation over the last four decades has led to serious capacity problems for both the airside and landside components of major airports. The efficient management of existing airside resources seems to be the most effective and practical approach to overcome these capacity and traffic flow problems. Although integrated management of aircraft parking position assignments and ground movement planning processes are vital for the effective use of resources and for efficient operations, the current practice is that these processes are handled separately by different agents. This study proposes a hybrid dynamic system, an integrated methodology of taxi path and gate assignment using a knowledge-based decision-making approach to model effectively time-variant and realistic operational features of aircraft gate management and route planning. The model assigns the most suitable parking positions with minimum taxi time and taxi delay among a reduced solution set, satisfying pre-defined decision criteria as well as monitoring ground movements and, if necessary, reassigning new taxi paths and parking positions in real time. Both the proposed integrated methodology and the separate gate assignment and ground management operations currently in use were implemented, analysed and compared in a fast-time simulation model of Istanbul Ataturk Airport (LTBA). The hybrid dynamic assignment model provided significant improvements in taxi times, ground delays and gate utilisation.