Modeling Airside Operations at Major Airports for Strategic Decision Support

Project Details
STATUS

Completed

START DATE

01/01/15

END DATE

06/30/15

RESEARCH CENTERS InTrans, CTRE, MTC
SPONSORS

Lambert - St. Louis International Airport
Midwest Transportation Center
University of Missouri - Saint Louis
USDOT/OST-R

Researchers
Principal Investigator
L. Douglas Smith

About the research

Tens of billions of dollars are spent each year worldwide on airport infrastructure to promote safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly operations. Airport layouts, allocations of gates to carriers, and the manner of deploying ground equipment or personnel can dramatically affect passenger delays, fuel consumption, and air and noise pollution. Airport planners require reliable information about how different spheres of airport activity interact and how system performance would change with alterations to physical infrastructure or operating practices.

We developed a discrete-event simulation model that can be used for strategic decisions regarding the provision and effective utilization of infrastructure needed for airside operations at major airports. We calibrated the model with detailed activity data for an entire year, verified its ability to represent essential spheres of activity, and illustrated its application to study system performance under several operating scenarios.


Funding Sources:
Lambert – St. Louis International Airport ($18,000.00)
Midwest Transportation Center
University of Missouri – Saint Louis ($22,750.00)
USDOT/OST-R ($27,001.00)
Total: $67,751.00

Contract Number: DTRT13-G-UTC37

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