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Analytical approach to solve the problem of aircraft passenger boarding during the coronavirus pandemic

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Abstract

The corona pandemic significantly changes the processes of aircraft and passenger handling at the airport. In our contribution, we focus on the time-critical process of aircraft boarding, where regulations regarding physical distances between passengers will significantly increase boarding time. The passenger behavior is implemented in a field-validated stochastic cellular automata model, which is extended by a module to evaluate the transmission risk. We propose an improved boarding process by considering that most of the passengers are travel together and should be boarded and seated as a group. The NP-hard seat allocation of groups with minimized individual interactions between groups is solved with a genetic algorithm. Then, the improved seat allocation is used to derive an associated boarding sequence aiming at both short boarding times and low risk of virus transmission. Our results show that the consideration of groups will significantly contribute to a faster boarding (reduction of time by about 60%) and less transmission risk (reduced by 85%) compared to the standard random boarding procedures applied in the pandemic scenario.

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... 1. under different level of seat occupancy (Kierzkowski and Kisiel, 2017;Notomista et al., 2016;Qiang et al., 2014;Steffen, 2008a;Schultz, 2018c) 2. with the assumption of passengers boarding through one door or both front and rears doors of an aircraft (Kuo, 2015;Milne et al., 2019b;Steiner and Philipp, 2009;Schultz et al., 2008), 3. concerning individual characteristics of passengers including walking time and number of carry-on bags (Hutter et al., 2019;Kierzkowski and Kisiel, 2017;Milne et al., 2018;Schultz and Reitmann, 2018), 4. assuming passengers traveling in groups (Tang et al., 2019(Tang et al., , 2012Wittmann, 2019;Schultz and Soolaki, 2021a), and 5. considering seating assignment (Ferrari and Nagel, 2005;Salari et al., 2019;Steffen, 2008a). ...
... The primary objective is to minimize the risk of transmission as far as possible and to develop appropriately adapted processes (Schultz and Fuchte, 2020;Milne et al., 2021;Salari et al., 2020). To address the situation where passengers travel in groups, a new analytical approach was designed to optimize the seating layout of passengers to minimize the spread of virus (Schultz and Soolaki, 2021a). The developed approach was also used by the authors to study an optimized passenger disembarkation process considering COVID-19 regulations (Schultz and Soolaki, 2021b). ...
... Note that the model can be easily adjusted to consider other strategies for boarding passengers, for instance, to an optimal individual, back-to-front staggered sequence of passengers, which is a border case of the outside-in boarding strategy (cf. Steffen (2008a), Schultz (2017), and Schultz and Soolaki (2021a)). ...
Article
The timely handling of passengers is critical to efficient airport and airline operations. The pandemic requirements mandate adapted process designs and handling procedures to maintain and improve operational performance. Passenger activities in the confined aircraft cabin must be evaluated to potential virus transmission, and boarding procedures should be designed to minimize the negative impact on passengers and operations. In our approach, we generate an optimized seat allocation that considers passengers’ physical activities when they store their hand luggage items in the overhead compartment. We proposed a mixed-integer programming formulation including the concept of shedding rates to determine and minimize the risk of virus transmission by solving the NP-hard seat assignment problem. We are improving the already efficient outside-in boarding, where passengers in the window seat board first and passengers in the aisle seat board last, taking into account COVID-19 regulations and the limited capacity of overhead compartments. To demonstrate and evaluate the improvements achieved in aircraft boarding, a stochastic agent-based model is used in which three operational scenarios with seat occupancy of 50%, 66%, and 80% are implemented. With our optimization approach, the average boarding time and the transmission risk are significantly reduced already for the general case, i.e., when no specific boarding order is specified (random boarding). If the already efficient outside-in boarding is used as a reference, the boarding time can be reduced by more than 30% by applying our approach, while keeping the transmission risk at the lowest level.
... The occurrence of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has produced changes in the indicators used for evaluating the airplane boarding methods [1][2][3][4]. In addition to the classical metric represented by the boarding time-namely the amount of time since the first passenger enters the aircraft and the last passengers occupies his/her assigned seat-highly used in non-pandemic situations (to which we are going to refer in the following as "normal times"), a series of health metrics have been proposed in the research literature for the times characterized by COVID-19, for the purpose of better evaluating the appropriateness of each boarding method for the new situation the world-wide air transportation industry was facing [1, 5,6]. ...
... For answering this question, the airplane boarding methods used by the airline companies have been tested while accounting for the imposed social distancing measures represented by leaving the middle seat empty [4,11] or by keeping only 50% of the seats occupied in the airplane [1], and imposing a minimum 1-2 m social distance among the passengers while walking down the aisle to their assigned seats [1, 6,12]. The performance evaluation of the boarding methods used by airplanes or proposed in the research literature for the COVID-19 times has been made through the use of health risk indicators (e.g., aisle seats risk, window seat risk, number of seat interferences, transmission risk, etc.) [2,5,6,30]. ...
... The health metrics considered in this paper are inspired by the health metrics used in the recent research literature in times of COVID-19 [2,5,6,30] by either using them as they are in the literature, adapting them, or creating new metrics that follow the same line of thinking. ...
Article
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The COVID-19 pandemic has produced changes in the entire aviation industry, including adjustments by airlines to keep the middle seats of airplanes empty to reduce the risk of disease spread. In this context, the scientific literature has introduced new metrics related to passengers’ health when comparing airplane boarding methods in addition to the previous objective of minimizing boarding time. As the pandemic concludes and the aviation industry returns to the pre-pandemic situation, we leverage what we learned during the pandemic to reduce the health risk to passengers when they are not social distancing. In this paper, we examine the performance of classical airplane boarding methods in normal times but while considering the health metrics established during the pandemic and new metrics related to passenger health in the absence of social distancing. In addition to being helpful in normal times, the analysis may be particularly helpful in situations when people think everything is normal but an epidemic has begun prior to being acknowledged by the medical scientific community. The reverse pyramid boarding method provides favorable values for most health metrics in this context while also minimizing the time to complete boarding of the airplane.
... Designing an effective seat assignment is a more challenging task for passengers who travel in groups and would like to sit close to their other family (group) members. As Schultz and Soolaki (2021) state in a recent paper, in the research literature, there are two possible meanings for the term 'group' (Schultz and Soolaki 2021). The first one refers to a cluster of passengers who are called to board the airplane together, e.g. ...
... Designing an effective seat assignment is a more challenging task for passengers who travel in groups and would like to sit close to their other family (group) members. As Schultz and Soolaki (2021) state in a recent paper, in the research literature, there are two possible meanings for the term 'group' (Schultz and Soolaki 2021). The first one refers to a cluster of passengers who are called to board the airplane together, e.g. ...
... This preference could be mentioned to the airline when buying tickets for the group or by buying each ticket in an individual manner. In recent work, Schultz and Soolaki (2021) address the group boarding and seating assignment trying to minimize the effect of the virus spread between groups (Schultz and Soolaki 2021). Our proposed model, however, keeps members of a family group nearby using a reward point system whereas their work keeps passengers from the same group near each other only when required to reduce contagion. ...
Article
We provide a mixed-integer programming model (MIP) to assign airplane passengers to seats while preserving two types of social distancing: the distance from the passengers’ seats to the aisle and the distance among groups of passengers who are not travelling together. The method assigns passengers travelling within a family group to seats near others of the same group. We present a heuristic algorithm to solve the proposed MIP. This algorithm is warm started with an initial seat assignment. Stochastic simulation experiments using the new method confirm that more passengers can be assigned safely to the seats when family groups are considered. For a certain load of passengers, as the percentage of family groups compared to singleton passengers increases, the model can practice social distancing among more passengers from different groups. The proposed model provides a superior seating assignment compared to an airline policy of blocking all middle-seats.
... Fig. 1 illustrates that the required process changes will have a significant impact on aircraft turnaround time, as these processes are part of the critical operating path. Studies that consider COVID-19 constraints for passenger boarding [1] and aircraft cleaning [2] highlight the need for appropriate process adjustments to mitigate the impact of significantly increased process times. However, there has not yet been an intensive scientific discussion of passenger disembarkation sequences under COVID-19 conditions [3]. ...
... This investigation also points out that disembarkation consists of the highest transmission potential and only minor benefits from distance rules and hand luggage regulations. The optimized consideration of passenger groups in the context of a pandemic boarding scenario will significantly contribute to a faster process (reduction of time by about 60%) and a reduced transmission risk (reduced by 85%), which reaches the level of boarding times in pre-pandemic scenarios [1]. The results of the passenger process evaluation considering the current COVID-19 situation were taken as input to further investigate the impact of pandemic requirements on the aircraft turnaround [2]. ...
... In the context of physical separation, the International Aviation Transport Association (IATA) requires a minimum separation distance of 1 m [30] and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires a minimum separation distance of 6 feet (2 meters) [31]. Considering the cellular automaton model with its regular grid structure (cell spacing of 0.4 m) and to maintain comparability with our previous results [1,2,4], the minimum physical spacing was set at 1.6 m (4 cells). At this point, we assume that passengers are informed that a distance of 1.6 m corresponds to the distance between 2 rows of seats, which provides sufficient visual orientation for the passengers. ...
Conference Paper
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Boarding and disembarking an aircraft is a time-critical airport ground handling process. Operations in the confined aircraft cabin must also reduce the potential risk of virus transmission to passengers under current COVID-19 boundary conditions. Passenger boarding will generally be regulated by establishing passenger sequences to reduce the influence of negative interactions between passengers (e.g., congestion in the aisle). This regulation cannot be implemented to the same extent when disembarking at the end of a flight. In our approach, we generate an optimized seat allocation that takes into account both the distance constraints of COVID-19 regulations and groups of passengers traveling together (e.g., families or couples). This seat allocation minimizes the potential transmission risk, while at the same time we calculate improved entry sequences for passengers groups (fast boarding). We show in our simulation environment that boarding and disembarkation times can be significantly reduced even if a physical distance between passenger groups is required. To implement our proposed sequences during real disembarkation, we propose an active information system that incorporates the aircraft cabin lighting system. Thus, the lights above each group member could be turned on when that passenger group is requested to disembark.
... Fig. 1 exhibits that the mandatory process changes will significantly impact the aircraft turnaround time, given that these processes are part of the critical operational path. Research that considers COVID-19 restrictions for passenger boarding (Schultz and Soolaki 2021) and aircraft cleaning ) emphasizes the need for appropriate process adjustments to mitigate the effects of the significantly extended process times. The challenge of orderly disembarkation is still an open topic. ...
... This investigation also points out that disembarkation consists of the highest transmission potential and only minor benefits from distance rules and hand luggage regulations. The optimized consideration of passenger groups in the context of a pandemic boarding scenario will significantly contribute to a faster process (reduction of time by about 60%) and a reduced transmission risk (reduced by 85%), which reaches the level of boarding times in pre-pandemic scenarios (Schultz and Soolaki 2021). The results of the passenger process evaluation considering the current COVID-19 situation were taken as input to further investigate the impact of pandemic requirements on the aircraft turnaround . ...
... Considering the cellular automaton model with a grid structure of 0.4 x .4 m cells, and to maintain comparability of our results with preliminary studies (Schultz and Fuchte 2020;Schultz and Soolaki 2021), the minimum physical distance was set to 1.6 m (4 cells). At this point, we assume that passengers are informed that a distance of 1.6 m corresponds to the distance of 2 seat rows, which offers proper visual guidance. ...
Article
Full-text available
Passenger disembarkation takes place in the confined space of the aircraft cabin. Boarding can be regulated to a certain extent, but this does not apply to disembarking at the end of a flight. COVID-19 constraints require that cabin procedures not only be operationally efficient but also effectively reduce the risk of virus transmission to passengers. We have developed a new mathematical model that accounts for these conflicting goals. We used an already improved seat assignment for passenger groups (e.g., families or couples) and implemented a genetic algorithm that generates improved disembarkation sequences. Our use cases show a significant 40% reduction in disembarkation time when physical spacing between passenger groups is required to comply with pandemic regulations. To inform passenger groups about the disembarkation sequence, we propose to activate the cabin lights at the seats in a dedicated way. Thus, our developed methodology could already be applied to actual airline operations.
... This investigation also points out that deboarding consists of the highest transmission potential and only minor benefits from distance rules and hand luggage regulations. Different boarding strategies are applied to reduce possible transmissions, such as reduced number of passengers seated close to the aisle [24] or boarding of passenger groups [25]. The optimized consideration of passenger groups in the context of a pandemic boarding scenario (see Figure 3 will significantly contribute to a faster process (reduction of boarding time by about 60%) and a reduced transmission risk (reduced by 85%), which reaches the level of boarding times in pre-pandemic scenarios [25]. ...
... Different boarding strategies are applied to reduce possible transmissions, such as reduced number of passengers seated close to the aisle [24] or boarding of passenger groups [25]. The optimized consideration of passenger groups in the context of a pandemic boarding scenario (see Figure 3 will significantly contribute to a faster process (reduction of boarding time by about 60%) and a reduced transmission risk (reduced by 85%), which reaches the level of boarding times in pre-pandemic scenarios [25]. In this context, the connected cabin and the associated position detection concept will be a key enabling technology. ...
... In this context, the connected cabin and the associated position detection concept will be a key enabling technology. Figure 3. Optimized individual boarding sequence considering 31 passenger groups and a distance of 1.6 m between passenger groups using a single-aisle aircraft as reference [25]. ...
Article
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With the rise of COVID-19, the sustainability of air transport is a major challenge, as there is limited space in aircraft cabins, resulting in a higher risk of virus transmission. In order to detect possible chains of infection, technology-supported apps are used for social distancing. These COVID-19 applications are based on the display of the received signal strength for distance estimation, which is strongly influenced by the spreading environment due to the signal multipath reception. Therefore, we evaluate the applicability of technology-based social distancing methods in an aircraft cabin environment using a radio propagation simulation based on a three-dimensional aircraft model. We demonstrate the susceptibility to errors of the conventional COVID-19 distance estimation, which can lead to large errors in the determination of distances and to the impracticability of traditional tracing approaches during passenger boarding/deboarding. In the context of the future connected cabin, a robust distance measurement must be implemented to ensure safe travel. Finally, our results can be transferred to similar fields of application, e.g., trains or public transport.
... In particular, this study addresses the IATA recommendations for ensuring an unoccupied middle seat to reduce the risk of contagion. This study extends the research of Schultz and Soolaki [6] and Cotfas et al. [7] using discrete event simulation to consider the occupation of this middle seat only by family members. This allows for an increase in aircraft capacity, thus reducing the economic loss of unoccupied seats. ...
... The authors concluded that the risk of contamination is reduced for most boarding strategies when the social distance between adjacent passengers advancing down the aisle is increased. Schultz and Soolaki [6] implemented passenger behavior in a stochastic cellular automata model, where passengers traveling together should be boarded and seated in a group, which is extended using a module to evaluate the transmission risk. This study shows that these groups significantly contribute to faster boarding and less transmission risk compared to the standard random boarding procedures when applied in a pandemic scenario. ...
Article
Full-text available
To ensure the safety of passengers concerning virus propagation, such as COVID-19, and keep the turnaround time at low levels, airlines should seek efficient aircraft boarding strategies in terms of both physical distancing and boarding times. This study seeks to analyze the impact of different boarding strategies in the context of the International Air Transport Association’s recommendations during the pandemic to reduce interference and physical contact between passengers in airplanes. Boarding strategies such as back-to-front, outside-in, reverse pyramid, blocks, Steffen, and modified optimal have been tested in this context. This study extends the previous literature using discrete event simulation to evaluate the impact of the occupation of the middle seat by family members only. This study also analyses the impact of having passengers carrying hand luggage and priority passengers on the performance of these strategies concerning boarding times. In general, the simulation results revealed a 15% improvement in boarding times when the reverse pyramid strategy is used compared to a random strategy, which essentially results from a reduction in the boarding interferences between passengers. The results also show that Steffen’s strategy is the best performing, while the blocks strategy results in the worst performance. This study has practical implications for airline companies concerning both operation efficiency and passenger safety.
... A new boarding model was developed by Ciarello [19] that considers the characteristics of the passengers, aircraft, and airline management during the boarding process to predict boarding time based on various factors. Some commonly used factors are walking speed, luggage storage time, aircraft occupancy levels and luggage situations (types and number of luggage) [20], aircraft type [10], capacity of the overhead bin [12], passenger compliance [21]. Other factors considered especially for the COVID restrictions include social distancing [8], passenger interaction [21]. ...
... Some commonly used factors are walking speed, luggage storage time, aircraft occupancy levels and luggage situations (types and number of luggage) [20], aircraft type [10], capacity of the overhead bin [12], passenger compliance [21]. Other factors considered especially for the COVID restrictions include social distancing [8], passenger interaction [21]. ...
... Mit dem Ziel das Risiko der Virusübertragung durch eine Maximierung der Abstände zwischen Passagieren/Passagiergruppen zu minimieren, wurde in Anlehnung an das Übertragungsmodell für Passagiere auch ein Modell zur Bestimmung einer optimalen Verteilung der nutzbaren Sitzplätzen in der Kabine entwickelt und umgesetzt [5]. Abbildung 5 zeigt eine geeignete Lösung unter der Annahme das 50% der Sitze genutzt werden. ...
... Jedoch bleibt es an dieser Stelle offen, in welcher Reihenfolge die Passagiere ein-und aussteigen sollten, um die individuellen Kontaktzeiten so kurz wie möglich zu halten. Ausgehend von diesen Annahmen wurden Optimierungsmodelle für das Einsteigen [5] und Aussteigen [6] der Passagiere aufgestellt. Die Lösung dieser mathematischen Modelle für ein mittelgroßes Problem (z. ...
Conference Paper
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In der Flugzeugkabine müssen sich die Passagiere während des Einsteigens, des Flugs und des Aussteigens eine enge Umgebung mit anderen Passagieren teilen, was ein Risiko für die Übertragung von Viren darstellt und angemessene Strategien zur Risikominderung erfordert. Abstände zwischen den Passagieren während des Ein- und Aussteigens verringern das Übertragungsrisiko, und eine optimierte Reihenfolge von Passagieren und Passagiergruppen trägt dazu bei, die Prozesszeiten erheblich zu verkürzen. Die Betrachtung von zusammen reisenden Gruppen ist dabei ein wichtiger Einflussfaktor. Die Grundidee unseres Konzeptes ist, dass die Mitglieder einer Reisegruppe nicht getrennt werden sollten, da diese bereits vor dem Betreten des Flugzeugs in engem Kontakt standen. Um jedoch den COVID-19-Vorschriften zu genügen, sollten die verschiedenen Passagiergruppen weiterhin räumlich getrennt werden. Der Ausstiegsvorgang stellt hierbei eine besondere Herausforderung dar, da die Passagiergruppen direkt informiert werden müssen, wann sie aussteigen dürfen. Bereits heute könnte die Kabinenbeleuchtung für diesen Informationsprozess genutzt werden, aber in einer zukünftigen, digital vernetzten Kabine könnten die Passagiere direkt über ihre mobilen Geräte informiert werden. Diese Geräte könnten auch dazu verwendet werden, die erforderlichen Abstände zwischen den Passagieren zu überprüfen. In der entwickelten Simulationsumgebung können wir zeigen, dass die Umsetzung einer optimierten Gruppensequenzierung unter COVID-19-Randbedingungen das Potenzial hat, die Prozesszeiten um bis zu 59% und das Übertragungsrisiko um bis zu 85% zu verkürzen.
... Electronic processing of passengers and bags has reduced processing time, queues and space requirements and even enabled some activities, such as check-in, to move off-terminal to a considerable extent [1]. However, these gains in efficiency contrast with the addition of processes and restrictions to ensure safety and security throughout the air journey [2], further increased by the focus on biosafety measures with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic [3,4]. Moreover, passenger experience is a result of the combined delivery of a variety of services by multiple stakeholders using different systems and usually following different objectives that consider quality of service from various perspectives. ...
... To simulate passenger boarding activities in the aircraft cabin an environment is implemented using a stochastic transition model via the cellular automata approach [14]. This approach not only allowed to investigate essential optimization approaches, but also to derive solutions taking into account COVID-19 requirements [4]. Security screening operations were the focus of other authors as well, who used a discrete-event oriented approach with the objective of improving level of service indicators such as queue length, queuing times and throughput [15,16]. ...
Conference Paper
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Airport infrastructure evolves alongside legacy systems and processes that limit the ability to fully realise the efficiency potential of costly renovations. Airports will continue to take advantage of current and future technologies. Nevertheless, for such systems to work as efficiently as possible, the passenger should play an active role. This paper analyzes the effect of a new type of emerging 'smart passenger', one that cooperates to be enabled to use the most efficient processes for a seamless experience. The technological and behavioural enhancements are assessed with the simulation of two case studies: London City and Palma de Mallorca airports. Results indicate that the introduction of this type of passenger brings benefit in terms of the level of service indicators not only to this type of passenger but also to the traditional ones (business, visitor, and leisure). However, the impact differs depending on the type of airport and the proportion of 'smart passengers'.
... However, as Brandt and Nickel (2019) have mentioned, the problems with real world scales and practical constraints have yet to be solved [14]. Regarding air passenge transportation, the literature on AWB planning mainly concernspassenger seat allocation with several real-world operation requests (Schultz and Soolaki 2021 [15]; Ren, Pan, and Jiang 2022 [16]; Notomista et al. 2016 [17]; Birolini et al. 2022 [18]; Wong et al. 2009 [19] Ma et al. 2023 [20]). ...
Article
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The traditional method of allocating passenger seats based on compartments does not effectively manage an aircraft’s center of gravity (CG), resulting in a notable divergence from the desired target CG (TCG). In this work, the Boeing B737-800 aircraft was employed as a case study, and row-based and compartment-based integer programming models for passenger allocation were examined and constructed with the aim of addressing the current situation. The accuracy of CG control was evaluated by comparing the row-based and compartment-based allocation techniques, taking into account different bodyweights and numbers of passengers. The key contribution of this research is to broaden the range of the mobilizable set for the aviation weight and balance (AWB) model, resulting in a significant reduction in the range of deviations in the center of gravity outcomes by a factor of around 6 to 16. The effectiveness of the row-based allocation approach and the impact of passenger weight randomness on the deviation of an airplane’s CG were also investigated in this study. The Monte Carlo method was utilized to quantify the uncertainty associated with passenger weight, resulting in the generation of the posterior distribution of the aircraft’s center of gravity (CG) deviation. The outcome of the row-based model test is the determination of the range of passenger numbers that can be effectively allocated under different TCG conditions.
... Risk assessments related to passenger behavior during boarding have also been conducted [47], [48], aiming to understand the potential risks associated with specific actions or situations. Considering the groups of passengers boarding together has also been investigated as a potential strategy [49] to better manage the boarding process and mitigate the risk of infection. Strategies to manage the deplaning process of the patients with severe acute airborne disease have been explored by Xie et al. [50], aiming to reduce the risk of infection for healthy passengers, with the risk of sacrificing the deplaning process efficiency. ...
Article
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Although the COVID-19 pandemic has mostly ended, there may be future situations (e.g. future pandemics) in which infectious disease spread on airplanes should be minimized. The COVID-19 pandemic led to social distancing as a means of enhancing passenger safety. Methods were developed to separate homogenous passengers from each other on airplanes and in other settings. This paper presents three greedy methods that assign passengers to airplane seats so that those passengers most likely to be susceptible to infectious diseases are separated from those passengers who are most likely to be infectious. Stochastic simulation results show that the performance of the proposed greedy methods provide much higher values for the average distance of separation between susceptible and infectious passengers when compared to a random seat assignment. The improvements in the two best of the three greedy methods range from 152% to 343% across the selected scenarios. In addition to considering passengers who are likely to be infectious and those who are likely to be susceptible to the disease, the methods consider those passengers who are likely to be both infectious and susceptible. By accounting for variations in individual passenger infectiousness and susceptibility to infection, we illustrate how disease spread may be reduced during future pandemics or similar health crises, thereby improving the safety and resiliency of air travel.
... Te constraints of pandemic situations have led to changes in passenger handling. Currently, airlines aim to protect passengers and crews from COVID-19 and see wearing masks as one mandatory action for passengers onboard [5]. Tere are further key elements to efciently reduce the transmission risk, such as temperature and symptom screening, cleaning and disinfection, or COVID-19 testing [6]. ...
Article
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An efficient hub-and-spoke network (HSN) can reduce operating costs and passenger delays at hubs through proper sequencing of flights and assignment of gates. Typically, batches of flights are scheduled to arrive within brief time windows. By considering aircraft sizes/loads and locations of the available gates, there is a considerable potential for reducing the total cost. During pandemic conditions, passenger transfer time and aircraft dwell time significantly increased because of outbreak controls (e.g., COVID-19 and its variant). In addition to walking time between connecting flights, there is a significant delay for the airport staff to validate passengers’ proper travel documents. The objective of this study is to minimize the total cost by optimizing the flight sequencing and gate assignment and by considering the realistic transfer delay under pandemic situations. A genetic algorithm with an elite selection strategy is developed to search for the optimal solution, which significantly reduces the total cost by 25% compared with that under existing operations, and the relations between optimized solutions and various model parameters are explored.
... Specifically, to maintain the social distance among air passengers, two deterministic models are proposed in Salari et al. (2020) based on two distance metrics: keeping the passengers seated far enough away from each other and keeping a safe distance from the aisle. Similarly, Schultz and Soolaki (2021) optimize seat allocation and sequence of boarding based on passenger groups. A mathematical model is developed accordingly to provide solutions to minimize the sum of shedding rates, which directly reduces the infection probability caused by an infected passenger. ...
Article
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the airline industry hard, leading to heterogeneous epidemiological situations across markets, irregular flight bans, and increasing operational hurdles. Such a melange of irregularities has presented significant challenges to the airline industry, which typically relies on long-term planning. Given the growing risk of disruptions during epidemic and pandemic outbreaks, the role of airline recovery is becoming increasingly crucial for the aviation industry. This study proposes a novel model for airline integrated recovery problem under the risk of in-flight epidemic transmission risks. This model recovers the schedules of aircraft, crew, and passengers to eliminate possible epidemic dissemination while reducing airline operating costs. To account for the high uncertainty with respect to in-flight transmission rates and to prevent overfitting of the empirical distribution, a Wasserstein distance-based ambiguity set is utilized to formulate a distributionally robust optimization model. Aimed at tackling computation difficulties, a branch-and-cut solution method and a large neighborhood search heuristic are proposed in this study based on an epidemic propagation network. The computation results for real-world flight schedules and a probabilistic infection model suggest that the proposed model is capable of reducing the expected number of infected crew members and passengers by 45% with less than 4% increase in flight cancellation/delay rates. Furthermore, practical insights into the selection of critical parameters as well as their relationship with other common disruptions are provided. The integrated model is expected to enhance airline disruption management against major public health events while minimizing economic loss.
... The study by Schultz and Soolaki [18] focuses on the aircraft boarding problem by investigating the COVID-19 transmission risk. The suggested method aims to reduce the time required to complete the boarding process in addition to lowering the risk of virus transmission. ...
Chapter
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Aircraft boarding has a direct influence on the operational cost of an airline. Therefore it has become imperative for the airline industry to find better boarding methods that minimize the boarding time thereby reducing the turn-around time of flights. Agent-Based Simulations (ABS) offer a way to investigate optimal boarding strategies. Complex interactions between multiple passengers during the process of boarding can be modelled using ABS to discover the factors causing most delays and to compare the performance of suggested new models. This study performs a critical review of 12 studies that investigate the aircraft boarding problem using ABS to compare their results. The study classifies the reviewed papers into three groups based on the objective of the investigation: (1) studies that evaluate the efficiency of various boarding strategies, (2) studies that evaluate new methods for aircraft boarding, and lastly, (3) studies that evaluate the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on aircraft boarding.KeywordsAgent-based modelingAircraft boardingBoarding strategiesSimulationCOVID-19
... This complex interaction between attitudes towards COVID-19related measures in the context of air travel, cultural and sociodemographic factors, as well as the more conventional set of considerations (price, duration, transfer type, journey purpose), calls for focussed crossnational analysis of data collected in the current context of the pandemic that suitably accounts for the various observable and latent drivers of air travel behaviour. The choice behaviour perspective of this paper complements the wider literature of modelling (Brauner et al., 2021, Liu et al., 2021 and laboratory studies (Barasheed et al., 2016, Christopherson et al., 2020, Chu et al., 2020 that explore the effectiveness of NPI measures in containing the virus, such as HEPA filters installed in the aircraft (Mangili and Gendreau, 2005, International Air Transport Association, 2020, Schultz and Soolaki, 2021). Beyond the immediate behavioural insights, the outcome of this analysis can also support the design of strategies and mitigation measures for future COVID-19-like scenarios. ...
Article
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The COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent travel restrictions have had an unprecedented impact on the air travel market. However, a rigorous analysis of the potential role of safety perceptions and attitudes towards COVID-19 interventions on future air passenger choices has been lacking to date. To investigate this matter, 1469 individuals were interviewed between April and September 2020 in four multi-airport cities (London, New York City, Sao Paulo, Shanghai). The core analysis draws upon data from a set of stated preference (SP) experiments in which respondents were asked to reflect on a hypothetical air travel journey taking place when travel restrictions are lifted but there is still a risk of infection. The hybrid choice model results show that alongside traditional attributes, such as fare, duration and transfer, attitudinal and safety perception factors matter to air passengers when making future air travel choices. The cross-national analysis points towards differences in responses across the cities to stem from culturally-driven attitudes towards interpersonal distance and personal space. We also report the willingness to pay for travel attributes under the expected future conditions and discuss post-pandemic implications for the air travel sector, including video-conferencing as a substitute for air travel.
... Thus, OCBA can effectively utilise the computation resource to improve the simulation accuracy. In the past years, it has been resoundingly employed to deal with various kinds of stochastic optimisation problems such as large-scale portfolio optimisation (Liu, 2016), power grid system optimisation , charging decision optimisation (Jiang et al., 2020), and seat allocation optimisation problems (Schultz & Soolaki, 2021). Therefore, we use the stochastic simulation combined with OCBA to evaluate and choose the required solutions. ...
Article
The rapid increase of aging population poses a great challenge on the public medical resources. Home health care (HHC), which provides the care services for the elderly and patients with mild disease, is an emerging approach to cope with such difficulty. This work formulates a stochastic HHC scheduling and routing problem with skill requirements to minimize total operation time. A stochastic programming model is given to mathematically define it. Then, a hybrid approach combining the genetic algorithm (GA) and simulation optimization with an approximated allocation (AA) rule is designed. The GA aims to search candidate solutions, while the simulation optimization method focuses on improving the efficiency of evaluating them. Numerical results show that the AA rule is more effective than equal allocation and proportional to variance rules in guiding the GA to find promising solutions. As a consequence, the designed approach acquires the better solutions for the problem under consideration.
... The introduced model simulates the main airport handling processes of passengers and enables to analyze the impact of anti-epidemic measures on airport operational performance. Schultz and Soolaki [10] analyze different boarding strategies and offer mathematical model for improving aircraft seat allocation while minimizing the risk of infection. Svítek et al. [11] state, "The smartness in case of utilization of IT technologies must also enable the airport to recover from different crises, such as the current pandemic situation." ...
Conference Paper
Airports worldwide are dealing with application of anti-epidemic measures, that lead to decreased capacity of airport terminals. Passengers are obliged to observe physical distancing and other rules, which in combination with longer service times at checks and controls lead to congestions in front of airport processors. This study aims to introduce new solutions for queue management at smart airports, that belong to the Smart Cities concept. The preliminary idea of buffer zones as waiting areas for passengers, that cannot be allowed to enter overcrowded areas, especially queues, brings new opportunities and benefits for both passengers and the airport. Based on performed simulations in the developed model, authors defined two types of buffer zones and determined the optimum time limit to distinguish between the two types of buffer zones. The paper brings theoretical and practical approach to use of buffer zones in real airport operations.
... Simulation modeling provides a systematic comparison to conclude the best solution to maintain system efficiency. Scholars have provided various simulation models to design an effective boarding strategy, including discrete event simulation (van den Briel et al., 2005;Zeineddine, 2017), cellular automata (Giitsidis and Sirakoulis, 2016;Qiang et al., 2014;Qiang et al., 2018;Schultz, 2018a;Schultz and Soolaki, 2021), agent-based simulation (Cotfas et al., 2020;Delcea et al., 2018b;Iyigunlu et al., 2014;Nugroho et al., 2021), Monte Carlo simulation (Steffen, 2008), and others. Here, this research aims to develop an agent-based simulation model to measure the effectiveness of passengers' entry sequence with the three luggage arrangement methods, namely Random, Ascending (L1L2L3), and Descending (L3L2L1), adjusted to the selected boarding strategy. ...
Article
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The boarding process is the role activity to maintain the airline's efficiency in the turnaround process on the ground. One of the scenarios to optimize the boarding process is the arrangement of passengers who enter the plane based on the amount of carry-on luggage, adjusted to the selected boarding strategy. This research aims to develop an agent-based simulation model to increase the effectiveness of passengers' boarding process by applying the luggage arrangement method for an airplane with a 180-seat configuration. The simulation results showed that applying the Ascending luggage arrangement method reduced the overall boarding process performance by 6.12%, while the Descending method increased boarding performance by 2.50%, compared to the standard Random method.
... In addition to safety and security requirements, pandemic requirements could become a third permanent constraint, sustainably changing both ground operations and passenger handling. For example, specific changes have been made to standard operating procedures for aircraft handling at the airport, such as requiring passengers to maintain a minimum distance when disembarking [59] and boarding [60], or additionally disinfecting the aircraft cabin [61]. These significant changes will impact aircraft ground time and overall airport performance. ...
Article
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Evaluating the performance of complex systems, such as air traffic management (ATM), is a challenging task. When regarding aviation as a time-continuous system measured in value-discrete time series via performance indicators and certain metrics, it is important to use sufficiently targeted mathematical models within the analysis. A consistent identification of system dynamics at the evaluation level, without dealing with the actual physical events of the system, transforms the analysis of time series into a system identification process, which ensures control of an unknown (or only partially known) system. In this paper, the requirements for mathematical modeling are presented in the form of a step-by-step framework, which can be derived from the formal process model of ATM. The framework is applied to representative datasets based on former experiments and publications, for whose prediction of boarding times and classification of flight delays with machine learning (ML) the framework presented here was used. While the training process of neural networks was described in detail there, the paper shown here focuses on the control options and optimization possibilities based on the trained models. Overall, the discussed framework represents a strict guideline for addressing data and machine learning (ML)-based analysis and metaheuristic optimization in ATM.
... Ref. [48] analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on the transportation sector and confirmed via mobility indexes that the impacts are unprecedented in light of earlier disease outbreaks. There are various other studies describing and analyzing the impact on aviation in general, e.g., on passenger boarding [49], passenger disembarking [50], and aircraft turn-around management [51]. Except for the above-listed negative impacts on aviation as a system, there is a set of positive impacts; for instance, in terms of reduced aviation-induced greenhouse gas emission during COVID-19 [52][53][54]. ...
Article
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Aviation has been hit hard by COVID-19, with passengers stranded in remote destinations, airlines filing for bankruptcy, and uncertain demand scenarios for the future. Travel bubbles are discussed as one possible solution, meaning countries which have successfully constrained the spread of COVID-19 gradually increase their mutual international flights, returning to a degree of normality. This study aims to answer the question of whether travel bubbles are indeed observable in flight data for the year 2020. We take the year 2019 as reference and then search for anomalies in countries’ flight bans and recoveries, which could possibly be explained by having successfully implemented a travel bubble. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to try to address the identification of COVID-19 travel bubbles in real data. Our methodology and findings lead to several important insights regarding policy making, problems associated with the concept of travel bubbles, and raise interesting avenues for future research.
... Furthermore, they only evaluate the performance of the security lanes and not the associated health safety of the passengers. Schultz et al. used a cellular automata model to simulate different aircraft boarding strategies under COVID-19 related restrictions [12]. He assessed for each boarding strategy the impact on total boarding time, the feasibility of the procedure and the associated risk of virus transmission. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the aviation industry, with a reduction in passenger demand never seen before. To minimize the spread of the virus and to gain trust from the public in the airport operations’ safety, airports implemented measures, e.g., physical distancing, entry/exit temperature screening and more. However, airports do not know what the impact of these measures will be on the operations’ performance and the passengers’ safety when passenger demand increases back. The goal of this research is twofold. Firstly, to analyze the impact of current (COVID-19) and future pandemic-related measures on airport terminal operations. Secondly, to identify plans that airport management agents can take to control passengers’ flow in a safe, efficient, secure and resilient way. To model and simulate airport operations, an agent-based model was developed. The proposed model covers the main airport’s handling processes and simulates local interactions, such as physical distancing between passengers. The obtained results show that COVID-19 measures can significantly affect the passenger throughput of the handling processes and the average time passengers are in contact with each other. For instance, a 20% increase in check-in time (due to additional COVID-19 related paperwork at the check-in desk) can decrease passenger throughput by 16% and increase the time that passengers are in contact by 23%.
... Hotle and Mumbower [23], show that air traffic has decreased by up to 95%. Passenger handling has changed significantly [24]. Passenger flow through the security checkpoint is currently insufficient to determine performance empirically. ...
Article
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So far, airport security screening has only been analysed in terms of efficiency, level of service, and protection against any acts of unlawful interference. Screening procedures have not yet addressed the need to limit operator-to-passenger contact. However, the pandemic situation (COVID-19) has shown that it is a factor that can be a key protection for the health of passengers and operators. The purpose of this paper was to analyse the feasibility of reducing contact between operators and passengers in the airport security screening system by process management with respect to the power consumption of the system. Experimental research was conducted on a real system. A computer simulation was applied to estimate system performance and power consumption. The paper identifies the important findings that expand upon previous knowledge. The results showed that there are two key factors: the experience of operators and proper system structure. These factors can significantly reduce the number of operator-to-passenger contacts and, in parallel, provide lower energy consumption of the system. The results obtained in this article showed that proper management improves the process by up to 37%. This approach expands the World Health Organization’s policy of prevention against COVID-19 and helps to ensure sustainable process management.
... Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been research in every aspect of COVID-19 infection risk during the passenger boarding process and within the cabin during flight. Relevant literature for the contents of this paper includes the suggestion of novel boarding strategies [7,8], social distancing during boarding at the aisle [9] as well as de-boarding and the impact of cabin luggage [10]. ...
Conference Paper
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In the German LuFo research project AVACON, the project partners jointly developed a mid-range aircraft concept for the year 2028 with an over-wing engine configuration. With every new iteration of the initial concept, an adapted cabin concept was derived. This paper introduces the different cabin concept derivatives and assesses them regarding their boarding performance. The assessment is performed using the PAXelerate open-source boarding simulation framework. The results for a random boarding simulation show a boarding time reduction potential of 3.4 percent for the adapted cabin layouts of the iterated cabin design. The COVID-19 crisis has forced severe limitations on the international transportation market and has put a focus on the infection risk within the aircraft cabin. Thus, this paper introduces as a second aspect a new methodology that enables PAXelerate to assess the individual COVID-19 exposure risk of passengers during the boarding process. The basic model enhancement consists of the tracking of all passenger movements throughout the cabin, the determination of the proximity to other passengers as well as the monitoring of the duration of the individual contacts. This approach is similar to the frameworks introduced by Apple and Google for contact tracing on smart phones. The results highlight the overall risk for rear-to-front and front-to-rear boarding scenarios, considering the overall number of contacts as well as the proximity and duration of individual passenger contacts. Boarding scenarios such as window-to-aisle, random or the so-called Steffen procedure seem beneficial. The removal of cabin luggage has the largest effect on exposure risk mitigation. This highlights potential pathways for a future safe travel scenario with a minimized exposure risk for all passengers.
... They pointed out the need for a change in sales strategy. Schultz and Fuchte (2020) developed a model for evaluating the transmission risk in the aircraft cabin, which was applied to optimize passenger group (e.g., families, couples) boarding (Schultz and Soolaki 2021). The results showed a reduction of boarding time by about 60% and less transmission risk (reduced by 85%) compared to the COVID-19 standard boarding, thus, contributing to near-to-normal operation progress. ...
Conference Paper
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Airport operations are undergoing significant change, having to meet pandemic requirements in addition to intrinsic security requirements. Although air traffic has declined massively, airports are still the critical hubs of the air transport network. The new restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic pose new challenges for airport operators in redesigning airport terminals and managing passenger flows. To evaluate the impact of COVID-19 restrictions, we implement a reference airport environment. In this reference Airport in the Lab environment, we will demonstrate the operational consequences derived from the new operational requirements. In addition, countermeasures to mitigate any negative impacts of these changes are tested. The results highlight emerging issues that the airport will most likely face and possible solutions. Finally, we could apply the findings and lessons learned from our testing at our reference airport to a real airport.
... Furthermore, they only evaluate the performance of the security lanes and not the associated health safety of the passengers. Schultz et al. used a cellular automata model to simulate different aircraft boarding strategies under COVID-19 related restrictions [12]. He assessed for each boarding strategy the impact on total boarding time, the feasibility of the procedure and the associated risk of virus transmission. ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the aviation industry, with a reduction in passenger demand never seen before. To minimize the spread of the virus and to gain trust from the public in the airport operations' safety, airports implemented measures, e.g., physical distancing, en-try/exit temperature screening and more. However, airports do not know what the impact of these measures will be on the operations' performance and the passen-gers' safety when passenger demand increases back. The goal of this research is twofold. Firstly, to analyze the impact of current (COVID-19) and future pandemic related measures on airport terminal operations. Secondly, to identify plans that airport management agents can take to control passengers' flow in a safe, efficient, secure and resilient way. To model and simulate airport operations , an agent-based model was developed. The proposed model covers the main airport's handling processes and simulates local interactions, such as physical distancing between passengers. The obtained results show that COVID-19 measures can significantly affect the passenger throughput of the handling processes and the average time passengers are in contact with each other. For instance , a 20% increase in check-in time (due to additional COVID-19 related paperwork at the check-in desk) can decrease passenger throughput by 16% and increase the time that passengers are in contact by 23%.
... Other authors focused on operational aspects within airport terminals, for instance, in [20] the security process at the airport terminal was studied considering how social distancing would impact security operations. Social distancing was also considered in [21], in which the focus was on the aircraft boarding problem by evaluating the COVID-19 transmission risk. ...
Article
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Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport was the second European airport in terms of traffic in 2019, having transported 76.2 million passengers. Its large infrastructures include four runways, a large taxiway network, and 298 aircraft parking stands (131 contact) among three terminals. With the current pandemic in place, the European air traffic network has declined by −65% flights when compared with 2019 traffic (pre-COVID-19), having a severe negative impact on the aviation industry. More and more often taxiways and runways are used as parking spaces for aircraft as a consequence of the drastic decrease in air traffic. Furthermore, due to safety reasons, passenger terminals at many airports have been partially closed. In this work, we want to study the effect of the reduction in the physical facilities at airports on airspace and airport capacity, especially in the Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) airspace, and in the airport ground side. We have developed a methodology that considers rare events such as the current pandemic, and evaluates reduced access to airport facilities, considers air traffic management restrictions and evaluates the capacity of airport ground side and airspace. We built scenarios based on real public information on the current use of the airport facilities of Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport and conducted different experiments based on current and hypothetical traffic recovery scenarios. An already known optimization metaheuristic was implemented for optimizing the traffic with the aim of avoiding airspace conflicts and avoiding capacity overloads on the ground side. The results show that the main bottleneck of the system is the terminal capacity, as it starts to become congested even at low traffic (35% of 2019 traffic). When the traffic starts to increase, a ground delay strategy is effective for mitigating airspace conflicts; however, it reveals the need for additional runways.
... Salari et al. (2020) Assign passengers to seats metrics: passenger distance and aisle distance, leading to better solutions than simply blocking all middle seats. Schultz and Soolaki (2020) Group-building will significantly contribute to faster boarding and less transmission risk (reduced by approx. 85%). ...
Article
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This paper aims to analyze and understand the impact of the corona virus disease (COVID-19) on aviation and also the role aviation played in the spread of COVID-19, by reviewing the recent scientific literature. We have collected 110 papers on the subject published in the year 2020 and grouped them according to their major application domain, leading to the following categories: Analysis of the global air transportation system during COVID-19, the impacts on the passenger-centric flight experience, and the long-term impacts on broad aviation. Based on the aggregated reported findings in the literature, this paper concludes with a set of recommendations for future scientific directions; hopefully helping aviation to prepare for a post-COVID-19 world.
... Even though it has been a short time since the World Health Organization announced the occurrence of the novel coronavirus as a "pandemic" [53] on 20 March 2020, a series of papers have been written with respect to this matter. Schultz and Soolaki [54] propose an analytical approach to the airplane passenger boarding problem, while Salari et al. [55] discuss social distancing in airplane seating assignments. The risks generated by the contact between the passengers while boarding have been discussed by Schultz and Fuchte [56] and by Cotfas et al. [57]. ...
Article
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The social distancing imposed by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has affected people’s everyday lives and has resulted in companies changing the way they conduct business. The airline industry has been continually adapting since the novel coronavirus appeared. A series of airlines have changed their airplane boarding and passenger seat allocation process to increase their passengers’ safety. Many suggest a minimum social distance among passengers in the aisle while boarding. Some airlines have reduced their airplanes’ capacities by keeping the middle seats empty. Recent literature indicates that the Reverse Pyramid boarding method provides favorable values for boarding time and passenger health metrics when compared to other boarding methods. This paper analyses the extent to which aisle social distancing, the quantity of carry-on luggage, and an airline’s relative preferences for different performance metrics influence the optimal number of passengers to board the airplane in each of three boarding groups when the Reverse Pyramid method is used and the middle seats are empty. We also investigate the resulting impact on the average boarding time and health risks to boarding passengers. We use an agent-based model and stochastic simulation approach to evaluate various levels of aisle social distancing among passengers and the quantity of luggage carried aboard the airplane. When minimizing boarding time is the primary objective of an airline, for a given value of aisle social distance, decreasing the carry-on luggage volumes increases the optimal number of boarding group 1 passengers and decreases the optimal number of group 2 passengers with aisle seats; for a given volume of luggage, an increase in aisle social distance is associated with more passengers in group 1 and more aisle seat passengers in group 2. When minimizing the health risk to aisle seat passengers or to window seat passengers, the optimal solution results from assigning an equal number of window seat passengers to groups 1 and 2 and an equal number of aisle seat passengers to groups 2 and 3. This solution is robust to changes in luggage volume and the magnitude of aisle social distance. Furthermore, across all luggage and aisle social distancing scenarios, the solution reduces the health risk to aisle seat passengers between 22.76% and 35.31% while increasing average boarding time by less than 3% in each scenario.
... Based on the literature, each of the patch agents in the model reproduced a spatial dimension equivalent to 0.4 × 0.4 m in real life [79][80][81]. Using the possibility offered by NetLogo of setting different characteristics to the agents, in the model, different colors were assigned to the patches to represent various object from the airplane cabin such as the aisle and seats. ...
Article
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The onset of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2 has changed many aspects of people's economic and social activities. For many airlines, social distancing has reduced airplane capacity by one third as a result of keeping the middle seats empty. Additionally, social distancing between passengers traversing the aisle slows the boarding process. Recent literature has suggested that the reverse pyramid boarding method provides favorable values for boarding time and passenger health metrics when compared to other boarding methods with social distancing. Assuming reverse pyramid boarding with the middle seats unoccupied, we determined the number of passengers to include in each of three boarding groups. We assumed that passengers use a jet-bridge that connects the airport terminal to the airplane's front door. We used agent-based modeling and a stochastic simulation to evaluate solutions. A full grid search found an initial good solution, and then local search optimization determined the best solution based upon the airline's relative preference for minimizing average boarding time and minimizing risks to previously seated passengers from later-boarding, potentially contagious passengers breathing near them. The resulting solution contained the number of passengers to place into each of the three boarding groups. If an airline is most concerned about the health risk to seated passengers from later boarding passengers walking near them, the best three-group reverse pyramid method adapted for social distancing will first board passengers with window seats in the rear half of the airplane, then will board passengers with window seats in the front half of the airplane and those with aisle seats in the rear half of the airplane, and finally will board the passengers with aisle seats in the front half of the airplane. The resulting solution takes about 2% longer to board than the three-group solution that minimizes boarding time while providing a 25% decrease in health risk to aisle seat passengers from later boarding passengers.
Article
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Boarding process is the main activity that became the key efficiency in each turnaround process on the airport. The successful in achieving time efficiency will give some benefit to all parties, including airlines, airport management and passengers, especially related to business sustainability, operational and customer satisfaction reasons. The objective of the research is to design an effective model for passenger boarding strategy that focus on airplane with a 180-seat configuration, in scenarios for both normal and new normal periods using agent-based simulation in NetLogo 6.1.1. The simulation output was processed using descriptive and sensitivity analysis and also Chi Square test of independence methods. The simulation results show that Wave strategy which is implemented through the seat-assignment and group-assignment has successfully demonstrated its effectiveness and gives an alternative to be applied by the airlines, for both in normal and new normal periods. By comparing the average boarding time with scenarios in the normal period (load factor 100%) and the new normal period (load factor 66.7%), it is found that the average boarding time by applying 1.0 meter of social distancing is about 78.21%, while for 1.5 meters about 116.06% and for 2.0 meters about 138.29%. Furthermore, by using the Chi Square test of independence analysis, it can be seen that the application of social distancing is highly correlated to the effectiveness boarding strategy.
Article
As the global civil aviation industry recovers and the restrictions imposed because of COVID-19 on the process of aircraft boarding gradually diminish, the issue of how to reduce health risks in special populations who are at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 during Post-pandemics has become urgent. In this paper, we propose a health metric for the health risks of boarding groups based on the seat risk metrics used during the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling the comparison of health risks among boarding groups. Secondly, based on the agent-based model using NetLogo, we evaluate the health risk of boarding groups from the boarding methods currently used in airline practice, using the health and efficiency metrics used during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, it was confirmed that health risk was associated with the boarding group sequences. As a result, specific boarding groups for high-risk groups are proposed when using the classical boarding methods for passengers at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Our results show that considering the placement of high-risk groups in the reverse pyramid fourth boarding group will contribute to a faster boarding for all methods (20.5% reduction in time) and a lower risk of transmission within this group (73.6% reduction) compared with the standard random boarding procedure.
Article
Although several studies have explored the effects of the pandemic on aviation, little remains known about whether members of the public are willing to fly again after they have been vaccinated. The current study uses the Health Belief Model (HBM) to fill this missing gap by manipulating the following variables: 1) whether or not the participant is vaccinated; 2) whether or not airlines require that all passengers and crew receive vaccinations; 3) length of flight; 4) destination; and 5) the number of passengers. The data from 678 participants revealed that willingness to fly is much higher if the participants themselves have been vaccinated, if the airlines require all passengers to be vaccinated, if the flight is short, if the destination is domestic, and if the number of passengers is low. These findings did not appear to differ as a function of flying business versus pleasure. We discuss the practical implications of these data as airlines struggle to bring back their customer base.
Chapter
The airplane boarding problem is discussed in this chapter by taking into account both the transport cost reduction and the risk assessment generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, while accounting for the passengers’ comfort while boarding. For addressing the airplane boarding problem, an agent-based approach is created and used for simulating the passengers’ boarding process, under a given set of assumptions. Several airplane boarding methods, all of them being variations of the Back-to-front boarding method, are analyzed and grouped into three categories using the clustering means offered by the grey systems theory. In order to group the boarding methods into specific clusters, five metrics are considered. The purpose of the simulations is to determine which are the best variations in Back-to-front boarding method that offer a good risk assessment, while ensuring a reduced airplane boarding cost. A medium-haul airplane has been considered for the numerical application characterized by 24 seat-rows, for which the middle seats have been kept empty.
Chapter
The present work uses discrete event simulation to incorporate COVID restrictions into passenger flow service in an international airport. It includes modifications in gate assignment processes, passenger transportation and operations handling during restricted time intervals to the covid pandemic. The impact of this modifications in service indicators such as process time and level of satisfaction (LoS) are presented and discussed focusing on the update of the bus fleet and the gate allocation results.
Article
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Many airlines instituted social distancing practices to keep passengers safe during the pandemic. The practices include keeping the middle seats empty, reducing the number of passengers taking an apron bus from the terminal to the airplane, and prescribing that passengers maintain 1 m social distance of separation from other passengers in the aisle while advancing to their seats. However, not all passengers comply with a prescribed 1 m aisle social distance. Through agent-based simulations of passenger boarding when apron buses are used, we examine boarding policies adapted for the pandemic when the level of passenger compliance varies. To compare policies, we consider the duration of time that passengers are too close to other passengers while walking or standing in the aisle. We consider other health metrics from previous research and the time to complete boarding of the airplane. We find that the WilMA–Spread and Reverse-pyramid–Spread boarding methods provide favorable outcomes. Airlines should use WilMA–Spread if their primary concern is the risk to passengers while walking down the aisle and Reverse-pyramid–Spread if they want faster times to complete boarding of the airplane and reduced risk to aisle seat passengers from later boarding passengers. The level of the passengers’ non-compliance with the prescribed aisle social distance can impact a health metric by up to 6.75%—depending on the boarding method and metric. However, non-compliance reduces the time to complete boarding of the airplane by up to 38.8% even though it increases the average time an individual passenger spends boarding.
Preprint
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The timely handling of passengers is critical to efficient airport and airline operations. The pandemic requirements mandate adapted process designs and handling procedures to maintain and improve operational performance. Passenger activities in the confined aircraft cabin must be evaluated to potential virus transmission, and boarding procedures should be designed to minimize the negative impact on passengers and operations. In our approach, we generate an optimized seat allocation that considers passengers' physical activities when they store their hand luggage items in the overhead compartment. We proposed a mixed-integer programming formulation including the concept of shedding rates to determine and minimize the risk of virus transmission by solving the NP-hard seat assignment problem. We are improving the already efficient outside-in boarding, where passengers in the window seat board first and passengers in the aisle seat board last, taking into account COVID-19 regulations and the limited capacity of overhead compartments. To demonstrate and evaluate the improvements achieved in aircraft boarding, a stochastic agent-based model is used in which three operational scenarios with seat occupancy of 50\%, 66\%, and 80\% are implemented. With our optimization approach, the average boarding time and the transmission risk are significantly reduced already for the general case, i.e., when no specific boarding order is specified (random boarding). If the already efficient outside-in boarding is used as a reference, the boarding time can be reduced by more than 30\% by applying our approach, while keeping the transmission risk at the lowest level.
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Efficiency and reliable turnaround time are core features of modern aircraft transportation and key to its future sustainability. Given the connected aircraft cabin, the deployment of digitized and interconnected sensors, devices and passengers provides comprehensive state detection within the cabin. More specifically, passenger localization and occupancy detection can be monitored using location-aware communication systems, also known as wireless sensor networks. These multi-purpose communication systems serve a variety of capabilities, ranging from passenger convenience communication services, over crew member devices, to maintenance planning. In addition, radio-based sensing enables an efficient sensory basis for state monitoring; e.g., passive seat occupancy detection. Within the scope of the connected aircraft cabin, this article presents a multipath-assisted radio sensing (MARS) approach using the propagation information of transmitted signals, which are provided by the channel impulse response (CIR) of the wireless communication channel. By performing a geometrical mapping of the CIR, reflection sources are revealed, and the occupancy state can be derived. For this task, both probabilistic filtering and k-nearest neighbor classification are discussed. In order to evaluate the proposed methods, passenger occupancy detection and state detection for the future automation of passenger safety announcements and checks are addressed. Therefore, experimental measurements are performed using commercially available wideband communication devices, both in close to ideal conditions in an RF anechoic chamber and a cabin seat mockup. In both environments, a reliable radio sensing state detection was achieved. In conclusion, this paper provides a basis for the future integration of energy and spectrally efficient joint communication and sensing radio systems within the connected aircraft cabin.
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Biometrics in an airport environment can provide a contactless way of identity verification. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been trialling and implementing the Biometric Entry Exit Program at U.S. Customs and Border Control (CBP). Using the Traveller Verification System (TVS), the program biometrically confirms the traveller's identity and their entry or exit, with an increased ability to detect fraudulent documents and visa overstays. This paper assesses the Biometric Exit Program to analyse the use of biometrics at airports and identify the challenges faced. An analysis is conducted on the Entry Exit Program at Dublin Airport, including facial recognition boarding gates. Pilot test results from Dublin Airport and other U.S. airports are used to identify challenges. These included a gap in stakeholder support, low biometric matching rate, infrastructure and network connectivity issues, privacy concerns amongst travellers, and heavy reliance on airlines. Recommendations and solutions for advancement are provided.
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The traditional method of relieving boarding congestion is to reduce aisle and seat conflicts by optimizing the boarding strategy. Here, we focus on another way of smoothing the passenger flow for a novel cabin installed with side-slip seats. Three aspects are discussed in this work. First, we explore the characteristics of fast boarding sequences that benefit most from side-slip seats using a simulated annealing algorithm. Second, we introduce three alternative strategies and evaluate their efficiencies using a realistic aircraft boarding model. The result shows that the boarding time could be largely reduced by adopting the new strategies. Sensitivity analyses also imply that side-slip seats are tolerable to the number of inexperienced passengers who are unfamiliar with the side-slip seats. Besides, the infection risk is also discussed as a function of ticket validation time at the check desk. Third, a boarding assistant system is designed to implement the proposed strategies.
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This paper has the objective of mapping the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that can be used to measure the level of service and the passenger’ characteristics that mostly impact the boarding procedure in airports. For that, two approaches are made: (i) structured interview with air transport specialists about performance indicators - analyzed through the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to prioritize the indicators, and (ii) regression analysis of permanent passenger’s satisfaction survey to identify the passenger’s profile. The results show a methodology that can be replicated and its application in three airports from the Multi-Airport System of Terminal Sao Paulo that compete against each other: Guarulhos International Airport (SBGR), Congonhas Airport - Deputy Freitas Nobre (SBSP) and Viracopos - Campinas International Airport (SBKP). Although results might vary for different contexts, for this specific application, it was found that time spent in airport queues can be used as a perceived level of service predictor for boarding. The passenger’ characteristics which mostly impact the perceived levels of service quality were: (i) ground access mode, (ii) family income and (iii) age. Regarding the airport’s level of service, SBSP, which is an airport that is not yet part of the government concessions, have the worst satisfaction rates both in “overall satisfaction” and in “perceived level of service in boarding procedures” when compared to the other two airports of this study. Also, the methodology used to select and evaluate KPIs in this study can help airports around the world that compete against each other to measure the financial return over investments associated with efforts to increase service levels.
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Airlines and researchers have been working to reduce the health risk to passengers from the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2. Recent literature indicates that the Reverse Pyramid boarding method provides a lower health risk than other boarding methods using a limited number of boarding groups, while keeping the middle seats empty. With a primary objective of minimizing health risks, we determine the number of passengers to include in each boarding group when using the Reverse Pyramid method. We examine how the optimal performance varies with the volume of carry-on luggage, the social distance maintained between passengers walking down the aisle, and the number of boarding groups. An increased quantity of luggage increases health risk, while changing the aisle social distance from 1m to 2m brings provides negligible health value to seated passengers. Increasing the number of boarding groups decreases the risk to passenger health while increasing the time to complete boarding.
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Healthcare providers such as the World Health Organization, transnational and global health initiatives, the nationalhealthcare systems, down to the smallest villages and individual practitioners and professionals could benefit from georeferential data and metadata and 3D digital assets provided by space technology. Health prevention and literacyprograms, mortality and morbidity rates, including contextual statistical data about populations and territories are beingalready produced and accessible. The hypothetical frame of a Digital Health Earth hereto presented could be performedas the interoperability of 3D representations of sectors of territories and geolocalized layers about health andenvironment. SDG Goals crossed with WHO programs and available data can become the premises for the design anddevelopment of a global representation of healthcare situations, highlighting priorities and disseminating data byintuitive and interactive modes of visualization as it is already happening with 2D dashboards about COVID-19pandemic. Healthcare practitioners, professionals, health managers, but also patients, proxy, social workers, laypeople,stakeholders and media could benefit from visualizing and comparing Digital Earth health data. Concerns aboutprivacy, digital divide and social exclusion from primary care services and how quality of lives might occur areconsidered here. As a consequence of Space Technology, especially for its connection with the Satellite industry,Digital Health Earth, will contribute to the development of a new added value economic branch inside the increasingmarket of the Space Economy Revolution (PDF) "Digital Health Earth": towards a global healthcare management geolocating human health condition by means of space technology. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348418927_Digital_Health_Earth_towards_a_global_healthcare_management_geolocating_human_health_condition_by_means_of_space_technology [accessed Feb 21 2021].
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In a follow-up to our work on the dependence of walking dyad dynamics on intrinsic properties of the group, we now analyse how these properties affect groups of three people (triads), taking also in consideration the effect of social interaction on the dynamical properties of the group. We show that there is a strong parallel between triads and dyads. Work-oriented groups are faster and walk at a larger distance between them than leisure-oriented ones, while the latter move in a less ordered way. Such differences are present also when colleagues are contrasted with friends and families; nevertheless the similarity between friend and colleague behaviour is greater than the one between family and colleague behaviour. Male triads walk faster than triads including females, males keep a larger distance than females, and same gender groups are more ordered than mixed ones. Groups including tall people walk faster, while those with elderly or children walk at a slower pace. Groups including children move in a less ordered fashion. Results concerning relation and gender are particularly strong, and we investigated whether they hold also when other properties are kept fixed. While this is clearly true for relation, patterns relating gender often resulted to be diminished. For instance, the velocity difference due to gender is reduced if we compare only triads in the colleague relation. The effects on group dynamics due to intrinsic properties are present regardless of social interaction, but socially interacting groups are found to walk in a more ordered way. This has an opposite effect on the space occupied by non-interacting dyads and triads, since loss of structure makes dyads larger, but causes triads to lose their characteristic V formation and walk in a line (i.e., occupying more space in the direction of movement but less space in the orthogonal one).
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Significance With over 3 billion airline passengers annually, the inflight transmission of infectious diseases is an important global health concern. Over a dozen cases of inflight transmission of serious infections have been documented, and air travel can serve as a conduit for the rapid spread of newly emerging infections and pandemics. Despite sensational media stories, risks of transmission of respiratory viruses in an airplane cabin are unknown. Movements of passengers and crew may facilitate disease transmission. On 10 transcontinental US flights, we chronicled behaviors and movements of individuals in the economy cabin on single-aisle aircraft. We simulated transmission during flight based on these data. This data-driven, dynamic network transmission model of droplet-mediated respiratory disease is unique.
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Efficient boarding procedures have to consider both operational constraints and the individual passenger behavior. In contrast to the aircraft handling processes of fueling, catering and cleaning, the boarding process is more driven by passengers than by airport or airline operators. This paper delivers a comprehensive set of operational data including classification of boarding times, passenger arrival times, times to store hand luggage, and passenger interactions in the aircraft cabin as a reliable basis for calibrating models for aircraft boarding. In this paper, a microscopic approach is used to model the passenger behavior, where the passenger movement is defined as a one-dimensional, stochastic, and time/space discrete transition process. This model is used to compare measurements from field trials of boarding procedures with simulation results and demonstrates a deviation smaller than 5%.
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Future 4D aircraft trajectories demand comprehensive consideration of environmental, economic, and operational constraints, as well as reliable prediction of all aircraft-related processes. Mutual interdependencies between airports result in system-wide, far-reaching effects in the air traffic network (reactionary delays). To comply with airline/airport challenges over the day of operations, a change to an air-to-air perspective is necessary, with a specific focus on the aircraft ground operations as major driver for airline punctuality. Aircraft ground trajectories primarily consists of handling processes at the stand (deboarding, catering, fueling, cleaning, boarding, unloading, loading), which are defined as the aircraft turnaround. Turnaround processes are mainly controlled by ground handling, airport, or airline staff, except the aircraft boarding, which is driven by passengers' experience and willingness/ability to follow the proposed boarding procedures. This paper provides an overview of the research done in the field of aircraft boarding and introduces a reliable, calibrated, and stochastic aircraft boarding model. The stochastic boarding model is implemented in a simulation environment to evaluate specific boarding scenarios using different boarding strategies and innovative technologies. Furthermore, the potential of a connected aircraft cabin as sensor network is emphasized, which could provide information on the current and future status of the boarding process.
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Aircraft boarding is always on the critical path of the turnaround. Efficient boarding procedures have to consider both operational constraints and the individual passenger behaviour. In contrast to the handling processes of fuelling, catering and cleaning, the boarding process is mainly driven by the passenger and not by airport or airline employees. Models for evaluating boarding sequences mainly depend more on assumptions concerning the individual passenger processes in the aircraft than on reliable field measurements. This paper provides a comprehensive set of operational data including classification of boarding times, passenger arrival times, time to store hand luggage, and passenger interactions as a fundamental basis for the calibration of boarding simulation models. In this paper, a microscopic approach is used to model the passenger behaviour, where the passenger movement is defined as a one-dimensional, stochastic, and time/space discrete transition process. This model is used to compare measurements from field trials of boarding procedures with simulation results and achieves an accuracy of ± 5%.
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Time is crucial in the airlines industry. Among all factors contributing to an aircraft turnaround time; passenger boarding delays is the most challenging one. Airlines do not have control over the behavior of passengers; thus, focusing their effort on reducing passenger boarding time through implementing efficient boarding strategies. In this work, we attempt to use cellular Discrete-Event System Specification (Cell-DEVS) modeling and simulation to provide a comprehensive evaluation of aircraft boarding strategies. We have developed a simulation benchmark consisting of eight boarding strategies including Back-to-Front; Window Middle Aisle; Random; Zone Rotate; Reverse Pyramid; Optimal; Optimal Practical; and Efficient. Our simulation models are scalable and adaptive; providing a powerful analysis apparatus for investigating any existing or yet to be discovered boarding strategy. We explain the details of our models and present the results both visually and numerically to evaluate the eight implemented boarding strategies. We also compare our results with other studies that have used different modeling techniques; reporting nearly identical performance results. The simulations revealed thatWindow Middle Aisle provides the least boarding delay; with a small fraction of time difference compared to the optimal strategy. The results of this work could highly benefit the commercial airlines industry by optimizing and reducing passenger boarding delays.
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Future 4D aircraft trajectories demand a comprehensive consideration of environmental, economic, and operational constraints as well as efficient ground operations during the aircraft turnaround to avoid system-wide, far-reaching effects (reactionary delays). The turnaround processes are mainly controlled by the ground handling, airport or airline staff, except the aircraft boarding, which is driven by the passengers’ experience and willingness or ability to follow the proposed procedures. The paper introduces a reliable, validated, stochastic aircraft boarding model, which is implemented and applied to common boarding strategies and infrastructural changes. In this context, passenger boarding is assumed to be a stochastic, forward-directed, one-dimensional and discrete (time and space) process. The stochastic model covers both the individual passenger behavior and operational constraints. The comprehensive and comparative evaluation allows for efficient comparison of currently developed research approaches and innovative operational solutions.
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The article presents the currently considered strategies of boarding passengers at airports with the use of jetway, showing their advantages and disadvantages. The aim of the paper was to present the human factor, which has not been well discussed yet, and, as the article shows, can have an important influence on the process of carrying out the boarding of passengers. The article presents the results of studies on low-cost airlines passengers. The analysis covered the time needed to place items in the baggage compartments, which depends on the availability of seats and occupancy of the aircraft. The occurrence of seat and aisle interferences was also analysed. In addition, the influence of the boarding passes controlled by the cabin crew on the process of passenger boarding was shown. The data presented can become a basis for developing a new strategy for boarding passengers with the use of a jetway.
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Background: With over two billion airline passengers annually, in-flight transmission of infectious diseases is an important global health concern. Many instances of in-flight transmission have been documented, but the relative influence of the many factors (see below) affecting in-flight transmission has not been quantified. Long-standing guidance by public health agencies is that the primary transmission risk associated with air travel for most respiratory infectious diseases is associated with sitting within two rows of an infectious passenger. The effect of proximity may be one of these factors. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the risk of infection within and beyond the 2-row rule given by public health guidance. Methods: We searched the literature for reports of in-flight transmission of infection which included seat maps indicating where the infectious and infected passengers were seated. Findings: There is a ∼ 6% risk to passengers seated within the 2-rows of infected individual(s) and there is ∼ 2% risk to passengers seated beyond 2-rows from the infectious individual. Discussion: Contact tracing limited to passengers within 2-rows of the infectious individual(s) could fail to detect other cases of infections. This has important consequences for assessing the spread of infectious diseases. Conclusions: Infection at a distance from the index case indicates other factors, such as airflow, movement of passenger/crew members, fomites and contacts between passengers in the departure gate before boarding, or after deplaning, are involved.
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Airline carriers, airports and passengers have common interests in expediting the aircraft boarding process for economical, operational, and customer satisfaction reasons respectively. Several boarding strategies have been proposed in the literature aiming to reduce the boarding time. Several theoretical models were able to achieve near optimum performance, but ignored the important aspect of allowing family and groups to board together in cliques. Some other models achieved top performance by pre-assigning passengers to seats, which deprived them from the essential privilege of choosing their own seats. The Dynamically Optimized Boarding strategy is proposed to shorten the boarding time, reduce on-board interferences, and allow passengers' cliques to proceed together to their reserved seats. Passengers are sequenced in a boarding queue based on their seats' positions, associated cliques, and the possibility of interferences, immediately after the last check-in. They are required to board the aircraft according to their positions in the queue. A technology-aided announcement process can help in guiding batches of passengers to a small pre-boarding area in order to aggregate before boarding the aircraft. A simulation-based study showed that the proposed strategy achieved a near-optimum performance without breaching the passengers' right to walk in cliques to their preferred seats.
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An efficient handling of passengers is essential for reliable terminal processes. Since the entire progress of terminal handling depends on the individual behavior of the passengers, a valid and calibrated agent-based model allows for a detailed evaluation of handling and for identifying system optimization capabilities. Our model is based on a stochastic approach for passenger movements including the capability of individual tactical decision making and route choice, and moreover, on a stochastic approach of the handling processes. Each component of the model was calibrated with a comprehensive, scientifically reliable empirical data set; a virtual terminal environment was developed and real airport conditions were evaluated. Our detailed stochastic modeling approach points out the need for a significant change of the common flow-oriented design methods to illuminate the still undiscovered terminal black box.
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We describe a new method to assign seats and to board passengers on an airplane that minimizes the total time to board. Steffen (2008) presents an optimum boarding method that assigns passengers to a specific numerical position in line that depends upon their ticketed seat location. Our method builds upon Steffen by assigning individual passengers to seats based on the amount of luggage they carry. Our heuristic method assigns passengers to seats so that their luggage is distributed evenly throughout the plane. Simulation results indicate that with our method, the total time to board all passengers on a fully loaded airplane is shorter than that of Steffen.
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The proposed stochastic model for pedestrian dynamics is based on existing approaches using cellular automata, combined with substantial extensions, to compensate the deficiencies resulting of the discrete grid structure. This agent motion model is extended by both a grid-based path planning and mid-range agent interaction component. The stochastic model proves its capabilities for a quantitative reproduction of the characteristic shape of the common fundamental diagram of pedestrian dynamics. Moreover, effects of self-organizing behavior are successfully reproduced. The stochastic cellular automata approach is found to be adequate with respect to uncertainties in human motion patterns, a feature previously held by artificial noise terms alone.
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The increase in air travel puts tremendous strain on existing airport facilities, so turnaround times for airplanes are under constant pressure to be reduced. Part of the turnaround time consists of the time required for passengers to board the plane and install themselves in their assigned seats. It seems that this boarding time for passengers is much higher than allowed, but up to now has been largely neglected in reengineering projects. This paper investigates different boarding patterns, in order to detect to what extent boarding time can be reduced. Findings indicate quite some discrepancy between current practices and optimal patterns. The results are analyzed with regard to airline objectives as well as to customer objectives, and implementation issues are considered.
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We model and analyze the process of passengers boarding an airplane. We show how the model yields closed-form estimates for the expected boarding time in many cases of interest. Comparison of our computations with previous work, based on discrete event simulations, shows a high degree of agreement. Analysis of the model reveals a clear link between the eciency of various airline boarding policies and a congestion parameter which is related to interior airplane design parameters, such as distance between rows. In particular, as congestion increases, random boarding becomes more attractive among row based policies.
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Rail is considered as one of the most important ways of transferring passengers. High passenger loads has implications on train punctuality. One of the important parameters affecting punctuality is the average boarding/alighting time. Organizing boarding/alighting flows not only reduces the risk of extended dwell time, but also minimizes the risk of injuries and improves the overall service quality. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of minimizing the boarding/alighting time by maintaining a uniform load on carriages through systematic distribution of passengers with flexible tickets, such as season or anytime tickets where no seat information are provided at the time of reservation. To achieve this, the proposed algorithm takes other information such as passenger final destination, uniform load of luggage areas, as well as group travelers into account. Moreover, a discrete event simulation is designed for measuring the performance of the proposed method. The performance of the proposed method is compared with three algorithms on different test scenarios. The results show the superiority of the proposed method in terms of minimizing boarding/alighting time as well as increasing the success rate of assigning group of seats to group of passengers.
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Common wisdom is that airplanes make money only when they are in the air. Therefore, turnaround time (turn time) on the ground should be reduced as much as possible. An important contribution to the turn time is airplane boarding time. Many different schemes are in use, from random seat selection to sophisticated boarding groups. A simulation model is described to evaluate different boarding strategies. In contrast to earlier work, it puts special emphasis on disturbances, such as a certain number of passengers not following their boarding group but boarding earlier or later. A surprising result of this work is that the typical back-to-front boarding strategy becomes improved when passengers do not board with their assigned group. Other proposed strategies still consist of small numbers of boarding groups but are both faster and more robust with regard to disturbances.
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