Airport Check-In Optimization by IP and Simulation in Combination

The check-in area of airport terminal is one of the
busiest sections at airports at certain periods. The passengers are
subjected to queues and delays during the check-in process. These
delays and queues are due to constraints in the capacity of service
facilities. In this project, the airport terminal is decomposed into
several check-in areas. The airport check-in scheduling problem
requires both a deterministic (integer programming) and stochastic
(simulation) approach. Integer programming formulations are
provided to minimize the total number of counters in each check-in
area under the realistic constraint that counters for one and the same
flight should be adjacent and the desired number of counters
remaining in each area should be fixed during check-in operations.
By using simulation, the airport system can be modeled to study the
effects of various parameters such as number of passengers on a
flight and check-in counter opening and closing time.

• Ahmad Thanyan Al-Sultan

• Airport terminal
• Integer programming
• Scheduling
• Simulation.

[1] A.M. Lee, P.A. Longton, Queuing processes associated with airline
passenger check-in, Operational Research Quarterly 10, (1959) pp. 56–
71.
[2] D. Atkins, M.A. Begen, B. Luczny, A. Parkinson, M.L. Puterman (2003),
Right on queue, OR/MS Today 30 (2).
[3] H.N. Chun, Scheduling as a multi-dimensional placement problem,
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 9, (1996) 261–273.
[4] N.M. van Dijk (2000), Hybrid combination of queuing and simulation,
Proceedings of Winter Simulation Conference (2000) pp. 147–150.
[5] Nico M. van Dijik, Erik van der Sluis. Check-in computation and
optimization by simulation and IP in combination, European Journal of
Operations Research 171 (2006), pp. 1152-1168.
[6] P.E. Joustra, N.M. van Dijk. Simulation of check-in at airports, in,
Proceedings of Winter Simulation Conference (2001) pp. 1023–1028.
[7] S. Yan, C.-H. Tang, M. Chen (2004), A model and a solution algorithm
for airport common use check in counter assignments, Transportation
Research Part A 38 pp. 101–125.
[8] T. Huisman, R.J. Boucherie, N.M. van Dijk, A solvable queuing
network model for railway networks and its validation and application
for the Netherlands, European Journal of Operational Research 142
(2002) pp. 30–51.