Airport ground crew scheduling using heuristics and simulation

Abstract

International airports are complex systems that require efficient operation and coordination of all their departments. Therefore, suitable personnel and equipment scheduling solutions are vital for efficient operation of an airport as a system. Many general solutions for fleet scheduling are available; however, there is a lack of scheduling solutions for airport ground crews, especially for work groups with overlapping skills. In the presented case, a scheduling solution for airport ground crew and equipment in a small international airport is described. As analytical methods are unsuitable for the system in question, the proposed scheduling solution is based on heuristics. A combined agent based and discrete event simulation model was developed to validate and improve the heuristic algorithms until they produced acceptable schedules and shifts. The algorithms first compute the requirements for workforce and equipment based on flight schedules and stored heuristic criteria. Workforce requirements are then optimized using time shifting of tasks and task reassignments, which smooth the peaks in workforce requirements, and finally the simulation model is used to verify the generated schedule. The scheduling procedure is considerably faster than manual scheduling and allows dynamic rescheduling in case of disruptions. The presented schedule generation and optimization solution is flexible and adaptable to other similar sized airports.