ii Analysis of required lead times of passengers and their baggage at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Summary
Problem description
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AAS) is an important hub in the global aviation network. The time needed to transfer, the so called required lead time, has an important role in the in the position of AAS with respect to other hub airports, as airlines can offer more and better connections. The required lead time is also important for the originating flow, as they have a flight to catch as well. The expected growth of passengers at AAS has lead to an airport developed plan called ‘Master Plan Southern Development’ (MPSD). This plan describes amongst others an expansion of the terminal with an additional pier, pier A. Schiphol Group, the company which is exploiting AAS, decided to use an Automated People Mover (APM) system as a transportation device between the root of pier A and the root of pier D in order to safeguard the required lead times of passengers. The baggage system will also be changed according the Master Plan Southern Development: a new baggage hall will be constructed and a high speed transportation line called the ‘backbone’ will be built to connect this new hall with the existing baggage halls. These projects will influence the required lead times of passengers and baggage. Static analyses have been performed which provide an indication of the required lead times in a best case, normal case and worst case scenario, but the percentage of passengers and baggage pieces that exceed the standards is not clear. Therefore this research aimed at gaining insight in the required lead times of passengers and baggage in the current airport scenario and the scenario in which the projects in the MPSD are completed, and to determine the impact of the MPSD by comparing the results of the two scenarios.
Analysis
As the actual required lead times of passengers and baggage depend on time varying parameters and stochastic distributions in the complex airport system, the use of a stochastic simulation model is required to obtain required lead time distributions. Data is accumulated regarding the two airport scenarios, which is needed to develop the simulation model. From the passenger process analysis, it turns out that little data is available of the process times regarding the gate processes. With respect to the baggage processes, not much is known about the process characteristics of the transshipment processes (baggage make up, loading and unloading of the aircraft and baggage unloading at the transfer unloading quay). Lead time standards are studied and previous research on required lead times is analyzed. It is decided to compare the required lead time distributions by comparing the percentages of passengers or baggage pieces below the corresponding standard.
Simulation tool development
Based on the findings of the analysis phase a generic simulation model is developed which is implemented in a user friendly application. Characteristics and configuration of processes can be edited within the application. Other input data, for example a flight schedule and an aircraft stand planning, is imported from Microsoft Excel files which can be specified in the simulation tool. The
Analysis of required lead times of passengers and their baggage at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol iii
required lead times are determined for each individual passenger and piece of baggage, as well as their composition. The results are written to a Microsoft Excel file. The simulation is visualized by means of a 2D-animation of the passenger processes.
Experiment and results
The simulation model is used to determine the required lead times of passengers and baggage in the current and the future airport scenario. From the results becomes clear that the targets with respect to the standards are not reached in both airport scenarios. For passengers having the most frequent required lead times, the time needed for walking and for the ABC reading process are the most time-consuming processes. The increasing waiting times of the check-in, ABC reading, profiling and API check processes are the main cause of the higher required lead time of passengers. In general, the percentage of baggage pieces below the required lead time standards is higher in comparison with passengers. The time needed for baggage transshipment is the most time-consuming process for baggage pieces having the most frequent required lead time. Higher required lead times of baggage are mainly caused by the check-in and transshipment processes.
When the required lead time distributions of both scenarios are compared, a relative small difference can be seen in the originating passenger and baggage flows. Higher differences can be seen in the required lead times of transfer flow, where the percentages below the standards increase in the future airport scenario with two to nine percent. The percentages of critical passengers and baggage, having a required lead time which is higher than the available lead time, do not significantly change.
Conclusions and recommendations
Based on the simulation results can be concluded that the impact of the projects included in the MPSD can be neglected for the originating flows. The impact on the required lead times of transfer passengers and baggage is significant higher in a positive sense.
It is recommended to perform quantitative measurements regarding the ABC reading and API check processes, as these processes have a relative large share in the total required lead time and simplified process time distributions have been assumed in this research. Also further research should be executed on the transshipment processes of baggage as these are the most time-consuming processes and cause the higher required lead times.
