Reducing passenger boarding time in airplanes: A simulation based approach

Analysis of Airplane Boarding Times

“…A comparison of our calculations with the results of the detailed discrete event simulations of Van Landeghem and Beuselinck (2002) and Van den Briel et al (2003) shows a rather remarkable degree of overall agreement on the relative merit of various policies. The comparison serves to validate the model.…”

“…The results and observations of Van Landeghem and Beuselinck (2002), Van den Briel et al (2003) and Ferrari and Nagel (2005) are of considerable value and interest. However, they do not address the need for a unified, analytic approach which can lead to a deeper understanding of the boarding process.…”

“…The boarding order is determined by the class and the group within the class. Such strategies have been examined in Van Landeghem and Beuselinck (2002), Van den Briel et al (2003) and Ferrari and Nagel (2005). We provide two examples of classes.…”

“…Airplane boarding has been previously studied through discrete event simulations by Van Landeghem and Beuselinck (2002), Marelli et al (1998) and Ferrari and Nagel (2005). In addition, Van den Briel et al (2003) formulated a non-linear integer programming problem, related to airplane boarding time, to which they applied various heuristics in order to find efficient boarding policies.…”

“…Van Landeghem and Beuselinck (2002) argue that back-to-front policies are ineffective because they cause local congestion in the airplane, but no explanation is given for the mechanism by which congestion affects boarding time.…”