Article

A Fuzzy Approach to Addressing Uncertainty in Airport Ground Movement Optimisation

Details

Citation

Brownlee A, Weiszer M, Chen J, Ravizza S, Woodward JR & Burke EK (2018) A Fuzzy Approach to Addressing Uncertainty in Airport Ground Movement Optimisation. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 92, pp. 150-175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2018.04.020

Abstract
Allocating efficient routes to taxiing aircraft, known as the Ground Movement problem, is increasingly important as air traffic levels continue to increase. If taxiways cannot be reliably traversed quickly, aircraft can miss valuable assigned slots at the runway or can waste fuel waiting for other aircraft to clear. Efficient algorithms for this problem have been proposed, but little work has considered the uncertainties inherent in the domain. This paper proposes an adaptive Mamdani fuzzy rule based system to estimate taxi times and their uncertainties. Furthermore, the existing Quickest Path Problem with Time Windows (QPPTW) algorithm is adapted to use fuzzy taxi time estimates. Experiments with simulated taxi movements at Manchester Airport, the third-busiest in the UK, show the new approach produces routes that are more robust, reducing delays due to uncertain taxi times by 10-20% over the original QPPTW.

Keywords
Routing; Scheduling; Airport Operations; Optimization; Taxiing; Ground Movement; Uncertainty

Journal
Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies: Volume 92

Status	Published
Funders	Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Publication date	31/07/2018
Publication date online	09/05/2018
Date accepted by journal	24/04/2018
URL	http://hdl.handle.net/1893/27123
Related URLs	http://hdl.handle.net/11667/114;
Publisher	Elsevier
ISSN	0968-090X