An aircraft boarding model accounting for group behavior

An Extended Boarding Strategy Accounting for the Luggage Quantity and Group Behavior

“…First, we can sort the passengers into three groups, where the passengers with 2 pieces of luggage are arranged in the A area, the ones with 1 piece of luggage are arranged in the B area, and the ones without luggage are arranged in the C area (see Figure 2). The group behavior has effects on each passenger's motion [22,23], so each area should further be sorted into two subareas, i.e., A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2, where the passengers in A1, B1, and C1 have group behavior and those in A2, B2, and C2 have no group behavior (see Figure 3).…”

“…(2) The group behavior has impacts on the seat assignment [22,23], which may have effects on each passenger's motion in the cabin since unreasonable seat assignment produces some seat conflicts [21]. Likely, the group behavior and the quantity of luggage have effects on each passenger's motion in the cabin.…”

“…Here, we divide the cabin into six areas, where I-VI correspond to A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2, respectively (see Figure 4). Each passenger's seat in I, III, and V is assigned based on the rules defined by Tang et al [22,23], and each passenger's seat in III, V, and VI is assigned based on the rules defined by Tang et al [21]. The detailed rules are shown in Figure 4.…”

“…Finally, we introduce the boarding model. Tang et al [20][21][22][23] pointed out that the pedestrian-following model can be used to study each passenger's motion during boarding process. For simplicity, we in this paper use the boarding model [21] to depict each passenger's motion during the boarding process, i.e.,…”

“…The above studies focused on exploring how to enhance the efficiency, so the impacts of strategies on each passenger's motion during the boarding process were not studied. To depict the passenger's motion, Tang et al [20] proposed a pedestrian-following model to explore each passenger's boarding behavior; Tang et al [21] introduced the passenger's individual property into the boarding model and proposed a model to study the impacts of the individual property on the passenger's motion behavior; Tang et al [22] proposed a model to explore the effects of group behavior on the passenger's motion behavior and the boarding efficiency, and later they further studied the effects of the luggage quantity on the passenger's motion behavior and the boarding efficiency [23].…”