Collaborative slot allocation for arrival flights in multi-airport terminal area based on the traffic flow pattern: a case study of Shanghai terminal, China

Abstract

In order to solve the increasingly serious congestions and delays in busy airports, the problem of collaborative arrival slot allocation for the multi-airport terminal area is investigated in this paper. With the premise of ensuring operation safety and the goal of minimizing total delay, the specific pattern of arrival traffic flow in the terminal area is considered in optimization modelling, and an improved genetic algorithm is designed for effective solution, followed which a simulation experiment of Shanghai terminal in China is conducted based on analysing the spatiotemporal characteristics of the arrival traffic flow in it. Results show that the proposed method in this paper is able to reduce the total arrival delay in Shanghai terminal by 18.67%, and the delays on three runways in the terminal are cut down by 14.56%, 19.35% and 25.37% respectively, indicating a significant improvement in operation efficiency of the total system.