Delft University of Technology
Faculty Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering Transport Technology
J. Pronk Bagagesystemen Luchthaven Schiphol: verbeteren van de aansluiting tussen bagagesystemen en platformtransport. Masters thesis, Report 99.3.TT.5269, Transport Engineering and Logistics.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is one of the largest European airports, as far as the numbers of departing and arriving passengers are concerned. The airport owes this position among other things to good baggage handling systems. In order to maintain this position and enable growth, innovations and extensions are continuously being realised.
The handling of separate pieces of baggage is already highly automated. The handling of sorted and containerised baggage is relatively underdeveloped. With this, one sees labour-intensive actions, a relatively large time-loss and an inefficient use of space.
The objective of this assignment was tot develop a new concept for the baggage handling area, which improves the connection between the baggage handling systems and the handling at the platform.
Starting point for this survey was a general baggage handling situation, but the actual findings and figures were based upon a case: Terminal West at Schiphol Airport, located in the basement below passenger terminal 3.
In order to obtain a improved concept, the present baggage handling systems and its bottlenecks were analysed. It appeared that the main reason for congestion stems the fact that tow trucks with trains of baggage containers and baggage carts are being transported in the baggage handling area. The analysis also showed that use of this trains along make-up carrousels lead to inefficient use of this carrousels.
Based upon this analysis a basic concept was developed. In this concept, the starting point was that containers will be transported individually. The baggage carts will be replaced by a so called 'kartainer': a bin that containers baggage for narrow body flights. This bin can be transported through the system in the same way as the baggage container. The process outside the basement, also known as the platform process has not been taken into account.
After an analysis of the expected baggage flows at Schiphol Airport seen in the light of the growth toward 60 million passengers, especially for the new concept at Terminal West, the ways in which the different sub-processes can be realised were listed.
Out of this, five concepts were chosen and worked out at a level of lay-out sketches. These concepts ware analysed using a multicriteria analysis. One concept was chosen as having the best chances of success.
This concept, named 'carrousel combi, everything AGV' is a concept consisting of a drop-off point for the containers with three lifts, 14 unloading points, 8 make-up carrousels with 128 make-up points (including 32 buffer places), an area for the storage of 1020 full and empty containers and a pick-up station to put the containers back up the dollies. All of the internal horizontal transport is done by automatic guided vehicles (AGV's). Transport in the storage area is done bij automatic stacking and reclaiming cranes.
The costs of investment for the new concept nearly 38 million guilders. This implies an amount of 18 guilders per transported container. Reports on Transport Engineering and Logistics (in Dutch)
