A New Simheuristic Approach for Stochastic Runway Scheduling

Rob Shone (), Kevin Glazebrook () and Konstantinos G. Zografos ()
Additional contact information
Rob Shone: Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, United Kingdom
Kevin Glazebrook: Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, United Kingdom
Konstantinos G. Zografos: Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, United Kingdom

Transportation Science, 2024, vol. 58, issue 2, 520-539

Abstract: We consider a stochastic, dynamic runway scheduling problem involving aircraft landings on a single runway. Sequencing decisions are made with knowledge of the estimated arrival times (ETAs) of all aircraft due to arrive at the airport, and these ETAs vary according to continuous-time stochastic processes. Time separations between consecutive runway landings are modeled via sequence-dependent Erlang distributions and are affected by weather conditions, which also evolve continuously over time. The resulting multistage optimization problem is intractable using exact methods, and we propose a novel simheuristic approach based on the application of methods analogous to variable neighborhood search in a high-dimensional stochastic environment. Our model is calibrated using flight tracking data for over 98,000 arrivals at Heathrow Airport. Results from numerical experiments indicate that our proposed simheuristic algorithm outperforms an alternative based on deterministic forecasts under a wide range of parameter values, with the largest benefits seen when the underlying stochastic processes become more volatile and also when the on-time requirements of individual flights are given greater weight in the objective function.

Keywords: simulation optimization; stochastic processes; runway scheduling; aviation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2022.0400 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:58:y:2024:i:2:p:520-539

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Transportation Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().