Planning towing processes at airports more efficiently

This paper addresses the towing process of airplanes as part of the turnaround process. We introduce a VRP based MIP model which assigns different types of towing tractors to jobs with specified service time windows. The objective function minimizes operating costs subject to operational restrictions such as technical compatibility of tractor types with plane types. Our modeling approach allows for multiple depots as well as multiple trips. To solve the model we develop a column generation heuristic. Computational results show the superior behavior of the proposed heuristic compared to the original MIP formulation solved with CPLEX. In a case study we derive insights which support schedulers in their daily work. For this, we identify cost drivers and evaluate the efficiency of manual schedules in retrospect.     

Stated-preference analysis to estimate the domestic transport demand following the future entry of LCCs and the inauguration of the Linear Chuo Shinkansen in Japan

Using a stated-preference survey, we examine changes in air transport demand by the entry of low cost carriers into domestic service, and with the beginning of operation of the Linear Chuo Shinkansen. In order to construct a choice model, we estimate the Nested-Logit model parameters by the two kinds of travel purposes in order to consider the differences in the price-sensitivity between business and non-business travelers. Simulation results for the each targeted OD vary in the shares of each transportation mode, depending upon the travel times, the aviation network, travel purpose. Non-business travelers who are more price-sensitive are less likely to choose the Linear Chuo Shinkansen with higher fares. On the route between the metropolitan area and Kinki area, total aviation demand will increase by the entry of LCCs to/from Tokyo-Haneda airport even when the Linear Chuo Shinkansen begins operating, showing that the development of the Linear Chuo Shinkansen service will not prevent strong growth in aviation demand for the trunk domestic routes.     

An assessment of delivery changes for UK terminal air navigation services

In order to meet government contestability policy ambitions, the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has undertaken a range of initiatives to create a competitive market for terminal air navigation services (TANS). This paper examines the critical dynamics underlying recent TANS service delivery changes at the nine United Kingdom airports that fall within the Single European Sky performance scheme (SES) using industry data and Porter's five forces model. Interviews with CAA, NATS and airport operators, along with publically available material, are used to explore the various elements impacting competition for TANS at these airports. Competition is intense among a very small number of companies. In addition to optimizing service cost, airport operators require greater value for money including alignment to strategic-operational goals, closer integration with other airside functions and payment structures that are performance based. Gatwick and Birmingham airports changed service provisions due to concerns about the value for money proposition offered by NATS Services Ltd (NSL). This paper also illustrates how competition has changed the customer orientation of NSL. It has been forced to evolve quickly from an expensive, perceived as somewhat arrogant, organisation to one that must be capable of aligning to the cost and service requirements of its customers. Importantly for the ATM industry this paper provides evidence that competition drives lower service costs and provides greater value for money for airlines and airport operators.     

Network competition and the difference in operating cost: Model analysis

In this paper, we propose a bi-level air transport market model which can handle the shape of network, airfare and service frequency as airline’s control variables and passenger’s behavior. We apply the model to the simple duopolistic market and observe how airlines change their network shape. We assume two types of airlines, the incumbent and the entrant, having different operating cost and conduct numerical computation. From the results, we discuss the features of network equilibrium considering difference in operating cost and confirm that inviting low cost carriers contributes to improving social welfare.     

Demand-responsive transit circulator service network design

Commuter rail systems are being introduced into many urban areas as an alternative mode to automobiles for commuting trips. It is anticipated that the shift from the auto mode to rail mode can greatly help alleviate traffic congestion in urban road networks. However, the right-of-way of many existing commuter rail systems is usually not ideally located. Since the locations of rail systems were typically chosen long ago to serve the needs of freight customers, the majority of current commuter rail passengers have to take a non-walkable connecting trip to reach their final destinations after departing the most conveniently located rail stations. To make rail a more viable commuting option and thus more competitive to the auto mode, a bus feeder or circulator system is proposed for transporting passengers from their departing rail stations to final work destinations in a seamless transfer manner. The key research question with operating such a bus circulator system is how to optimally determine a bus route and stopping sequence for each circulating tour by using the real-time demand information. In this paper, we name this joint routing and stopping optimization problem the circulator service network design problem, the objective of which is to minimize the total tour cost incurred to bus passengers and operators with respect to minimizing the walk time of each individual bus passenger. A bi-level nonlinear mixed integer programming model is constructed and a tabu search method with different local search strategies and neighborhood evaluation methods is then developed for tackling the circulator service network design problem.     

The role of schedule delays on passengers’ choice of access modes: A case study of Japan’s international hub airports

We empirically study passenger modal-choice behavior to access an international hub airport, by using stated preference (SP) data and by constructing a binomial logit model. We found that passenger modal choice is affected by the service level of the access modes: travel time, travel cost, waiting time, and delay cost. The results also indicate that if passengers choose access mode in advance they consider service frequency: departure timing from home, and the arrival timing at the airport. Moreover, our results indicate that travelers’ willingness to pay for saving time differs by time of a day. They are apt to pay more in the morning than in the afternoon. These outcomes must contribute to improve the access flight service from local to hub airports to handle the needs of passengers.     

Anticipating long-distance travel shifts due to self-driving vehicles

Increasing population and travel demand has prompted new efforts to model travel demand across the United States. One such model is rJourney that estimates travel demand among thousands of regions and models mode and destination choice. rJourney includes records representing 1.17 billion long-distance trips throughout the year 2010. Although inter-regional impacts caused by an increase of automated vehicles (AVs) has been investigated, there is little research on inter-regional travel and how longer distance destination and mode choices will change. Because of conveniences offered by AVs, the value of travel time of drivers is expected to fall, thus reducing the generalized cost of AV travel. To initially analyze the impacts of AVs in the United States, a new AV mode was added to a subset of the rJourney mode and destination choice models. With an initial scenario assuming an operating cost of AVs that is 118% of traditional cars, two outcomes are observed that are solely based on model results. First, the attractiveness of AVs severely digs into the airline travel market, reducing airline revenues to 53%. Second, the introduction of AVs results in a shift of destination choice, increasing travel in further distances for personal vehicles, but favoring closer distances across all modes, for an overall 6.7% decline in US passenger-miles traveled on existing long-distance trips. While this preliminary research has revealed an initial perspective on how an existing model can support AVs, the increasing availability of data as AVs emerge will refine nationwide long-distance modeling.     

The role of airport proximity on warehouse location and associated truck trips: Evidence from Toronto,Ontario

This paper examines the two-way relationship between land use and transportation from the perspective of warehouses in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area. A location choice model is first developed to reproduce the decision process of firms selecting suitable locations to operate warehousing facilities. The results highlight that transportation plays a prominent role in the location of warehouses with proximity to airport, highway infrastructure, and rail to a lesser extent. However, the proportion of industrial land use provides the largest role in the model suggesting that available land and zoning is the most important factor. This paper also studies the impact of warehouse location on freight transportation trips. The resulting analysis highlights that GPS derived trips arising from warehouses near a major airport in Toronto tend to travel 1.8 times further than trips pertaining to other warehouses in the region. This suggests that trips related to the airport are more likely to be connected to a larger supply chain process.     

Measuring aeronautical service efficiency and commercial service efficiency of East Asia airport companies: An application of Network Data Envelopment Analysis

Improving operation efficiency has become an important development strategy for many airport companies. However, there is little research on these companies' operating process decomposition or discussing the causes of inefficiency in sub-processes. This study evaluates the overall efficiency and the operational efficiencies of aeronautical service sub-process and commercial service sub-process for 10 East Asia airport companies from 2009 to 2013 using Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA) and identifies the key influencing factors of respective sub-processes efficiency by employing the Panel Data model. The first-stage NDEA results indicate that only Airport Authority Hong Kong in 2012 and 2013 performed efficiently in both sub-processes and achieved overall efficiency. The overall efficiencies of all other companies are not high. During the entire study period, in aeronautical service sub-process, Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd. and Shanghai International Airport Co., Ltd. performed efficiently, while in commercial service sub-process, only Hong Kong airport performed efficiently. The second-stage regression analysis implies the number of airlines served and the number of destinations have significant and positive influences on the efficiency of aeronautical service. Non-aeronautical revenues and service quality have significant and positive influences on commercial service efficiency.     

Improving US airport taxicab services through governance arrangements

Most airports internationally have implemented customer satisfaction programs into their operations to increase non-aeronautical revenues. In the US, taxicabs are an essential airport transport mode given the limited public transport options available. Effective airport taxicab planning efforts can increase airport customer satisfaction levels, as well as facilitate handling increased airport passenger volumes. However, little is known on how US airports have adapted their governance practices from a traditional hierarchical to a network approach in their efforts to undertake airport taxicab planning initiatives since the deregulation of the transportation industry. Data acquired from 51 US hub airports is used to examine their existing taxicab planning practices. The findings offer how US airports can modify governance processes in their airport taxicab planning processes to better support increases in the customer satisfaction levels of airport taxicab patrons.     

Intermodal integration in air transportation: status quo, motives and future developments

Soaring air traffic, increasing urban expansion and airports operating at full capacity are reasons that have caused a discussion about improvements in airport landside access systems. One approach to better match customer demands and address airport congestion is to facilitate the intermodal integration of airports. Building on a survey on intermodal passenger air transportation, we elaborate on the current and future situation at major airports. Our findings indicate a high modal concentration and dependence on individual access modes. However, while airport managers intend to reduce the share of these modes, they plan to increase that of high-occupancy airport access modes. We analyze the underlying motives that cause airports to extend their connections to surface infrastructure. In a case study, we assess an intermodal best practice solution for the integration of air and rail.     

Endogenous control of service rates in stochastic and dynamic queuing models of airport congestion

Airport congestion mitigation requires reliable delay estimates. This paper presents an integrated model of airport congestion that combines a tactical model of capacity utilization into a strategic queuing model. The model quantifies the relationships between flight schedules, airport capacity and flight delays, while accounting for the way arrival and departure service rates can be controlled over the day to maximize operating efficiency. We show that the model estimates the average and variability of the delays observed at New York’s airports relatively well. Results suggest that delays can be extremely sensitive to even small changes in flight schedules or airport capacity.     

Reliable design of an integrated supply chain with expedited shipments under disruption risks

This paper studied the design of a two-echelon supply chain where a set of suppliers serve a set of terminals that receive uncertain customer demands. In particular, we considered probabilistic transportation disruptions that may halt product supply from certain suppliers. We formulated this problem into an integer nonlinear program to determine the optimal system design that minimizes the expected total cost. A customized solution algorithm based on Lagrangian relaxation was developed to efficiently solve this model. Several numerical examples were conducted to test the proposed model and draw managerial insights into how the key parameters affect the optimal system design.     

Cooperative approaches to managing air traffic efficiently—the airline perspective

After decades of operating in a traditional customer–supplier relation, airlines and airports have started to discover the potential of cooperation strategies. Here we present an approach of how to identify possible fields for cooperation between the two players and give examples for proven successful joint development initiatives. In more detail we elaborate on two specific case studies, targeting at two entirely different kinds of actors. The field of air service development (ASD) enables airports to attract additional traffic in order to better utilize existing capacities. Collaborative decision making (CDM) on the other hand is an approach supporting the optimized utilization of congested airport infrastructure and air space. We conclude that even with low investment needs substantial benefits can be generated for the cooperating parties, opening room for further future cooperation projects.     

Estimating the sensitivity of small airport catchments to competition from larger airports: A case study in Indiana

An accurate estimation of airport catchment area enables airlines and airport operators to make informed decisions and to target potential markets precisely. This study uses the state of Indiana as a case study to estimate traffic leakage from the local airport, Indianapolis International Airport (IND), to two large hub airports in Illinois, the neighboring state of Indiana, namely Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) and Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW). By using a decision making model that considers flying cost and access cost, this study simulates from local passengers' perspective which origin airport delivers the most cost effective flight itinerary. Using the top 20 routes of IND in 2018 as model inputs, the catchment area of two Chicago based airports in Indiana with variable coverage is plotted for different traveling scenarios. The analysis shows that an airport catchment area is sensitive to location, service level and traffic volume of competing airports nearby, as well as purpose of travel (business or leisure), number of travelers in a group (single, couple, family or multiple), length of trip, destination (domestic or international), preference of airlines (network carrier or budget carrier), and frequent flyer program status (premier member or general member). These findings could be valuable to all three aforementioned airports as well as airlines serving these airports when allocating operational and marketing resources. More importantly, this study creates a generic model that could be used by virtually any airport to estimate scenario-based catchment area using readily available itinerary and spatial data without resorting to expensive passenger surveys.     

Estimating the costs of airport congestion due to fast connections

Short-term airport congestion due to service peaks causes transitory peaks in demand for customer services and ground-handling processes. Efforts to maximize flight-specific revenues have been mitigated by the recognition of the excessive burden to the service processes caused by these busy periods. The costs of peak periods for one mid-size European airline at its main airport are examined. The case company can cut the costs of ground-handling processes by 30% by applying slightly different timetabling principles. In fact, by adjusting only a few flights during the morning rush hour the company could save up to a million euros annually. These results show the importance of estimating the total economic effects of service peaks also to the authorities and the providers of airport services. In future research, the revenue impacts of despoking should be considered in addition to total process costs.     

Inferring the trip purposes and uncovering spatio-temporal activity patterns from dockless shared bike dataset in Shenzhen,China

Trip purpose is closely related to travel patterns and plays an important role in urban planning and transportation management. Recently, there has been a growing interest in investigating the spatio-temporal patterns of dockless shared-bike usage and its influencing mechanisms. Few, however, have focused on revealing the travel patterns by inferring the purpose of dockless shared-bike trips at the individual level. We present a framework for inferring the purpose of dockless shared-bike users, based on gravity model and Bayesian rules, and conduct it in Shenzhen, China. We consider the comprehensive factors including distance, time, environment, activity type proportion, and service capacity of points of interest (POIs), the last two factors of which were usually neglected in previous transport studies. Especially, we integrated areas of interest (AOIs) and Tencent User density (TUD) social media data characterize the service capacity of POIs, which reflect the area and scale differences of different POI categories. Through the comparison between two improved models and the basic model, it is demonstrated that the introduction of activity type proportion and service capacity of POIs can improve the effectiveness of model for inferring the purposes of dockless shared-bike trips. Based on the obtained trip purposes, we further explore the spatio-temporal patterns of different activities and gain some insights into bike travel demand, which can inform scientific decisions for bicycle infrastructure planning and dockless shared- bike management.     

Simulation method for dispatching national border security manpower to mitigate manpower shortage

Recently, a record number of passengers have entered and exited Taiwan from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TTIA). The number of passengers from Taiwan to mainland China has increased largely because of the improvement of cross-strait cultural interaction and other policies, as well as the opening of direct flights. Not only located in the transport hub of the East Asia Taoyuan International Airport is becoming more important and can provide 24 h Airport service, but also airport immigration officers must take 24 h shift to carry out the passenger document inspection requirement, Immigration officers can be fatigued by long shifts, thus negatively affecting border security clearance efficiency and work performance. Consequently, innovative management practices regarding immigration officers are necessary to strengthen international cooperation against terrorism. This study used system simulation Delphi interviews and a heuristic algorithm to determine the required number of airport immigration officers during a fixed passenger waiting time, for improving the efficiency and stability of airport immigration officers who work to consolidate the border security of the country. The results showed that the utilization of airport immigration officers at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is higher than 97.99%, and their work hours have been reduced by more than 54.68%. These results proved that using a system simulation can reduce long work shifts and negligence, which can lead improved border security and airport service quality. Additionally, the simulation results that when the National Immigration Agency and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport implement the biometrics verification system for noncitizens, significant manpower shortages are expected. These shortages can cause complaints from customers and result in a negative image of the quality of airport service. Assigning priority to setting the E-GATE system to compensate for the lack of immigration officers would result in more efficient and effective border security.     

Sizing of processing and holding air terminal facilities for charter passengers using simulation tools

Charter passengers represent a category of airport users that imposes uncommon operating conditions to airport terminal facilities, which, if not anticipated, may result in a low level of service. This is usually the case of airports serving areas of tourist attraction where growth in demand of charter flights has made them the dominant passenger flow. This paper presents a simulation model that enables the investigation of charter passenger effects on air terminal facilities and enables the estimation of the level of service offered. Some of the model’s features can be easily implemented by use of spreadsheets. The paper concludes with a critical assessment of the results arisen in the master plan of two Greek airports where the simulation model was implemented.     

Estimating the marginal costs of airport operation using multivariate time series models with correlated error terms

This paper explores insights about marginal airport costs that can be gained by analysing labour inputs and their variability. Based on hourly cost and traffic data for the airport of Helsinki, a multivariate time series approach is used incorporating correlated error terms to account for random shocks such as delays. We found for most airport services a linear relationship between labour input and aircraft movements, except for producing passenger services for international departing flights where a cubic cost relationship was estimated. The findings are comparable with earlier studies for US airports.