Scheduling Aircraft Landings at LSS Airport

Coumba Diallo, Babacar Mbaye Ndiaye, Diaraf Seck

Laboratory of Mathematics of Decision and Numerical Analysis, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal.
Unité Mixte Internationale, UMMISCO, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Bondy, France.

DOI: 10.4236/ajor.2012.22027                

Abstract

This paper presents a short contribution in air transportation, specifically in scheduling aircraft (plane) landings at Léopol Sédar Senghor (LSS) airport of Dakar. The safety of air navigation of LSS is managed by ASECNA: Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar. Scheduling aircraft landing is the problem of deciding a landing time on an appropriate runway for each aircraft in a given set of aircraft such that each aircraft lands within a predetermined time window. The separation criteria between the landing of an aircraft, and the landing of all successive aircraft, are respected. Our objective is to minimize the cost of deviation from the target times. We present a mixed-integer 0 - 1 formulation for the single runway case. Numerical experiments and comparisons based on real datasets of LSS airport are presented.

Keywords

Air Traffic Control; Runway Operations; Scheduling; Non Convex Optimization

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	ASECNA, “Activity Report,” 2008. http://www.asecna.aero/asecna_rapport_dactivite.html
[2]	F. Ntongo, “Will ASECNA Meet the Needs of African Air Navigation for the 21st Century? An Analysis of Asecna Strategy for Adopting CNS/ATM,” MSc. Thesis, Cranfield College of Aeronautics-MSc Air Transport Management, 2005.
[3]	J. E. Beasley, M. Krishnamoorthy, Y. M. Sharaiha and D. Abramson, “Scheduling Aircraft Landings—The Static Case,” Transportation Science, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2000, pp. 180-197. doi:10.1287/trsc.34.2.180.12302
[4]	J. E. Beasley, J. Sonander and P. Havelock, “Scheduling Aircraft Landings at London Heathrow Using a Population Heuristic,” Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 52, No. 5, 2001, pp. 483-493. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601129
[5]	J. E. Beasley, M. Krishnamoorthy, Y. M. Sharaiha and D. Abramson, “Displacement Problem and Dynamically Scheduling Aircraft Landings,” Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 55, No. 1, 2004, pp. 54-64. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601650
[6]	M. J. Soomer and G. J. Franx, “Scheduling Aircraft Landings Using Airlines’ Preferences,” European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 190, No. 1, 2008, pp. 277- 291. doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2007.06.017
[7]	K. Artiouchine, P. Baptiste and C. Dürr, “Runway Sequencing with Holding Patterns,” Technical Report, Labatoire d’Informatique de l’Ecole Polytechnique, 2004.
[8]	G. C. Carr, H. Erzberger and F. Neuman, “Airline Arrival Prioritazion in Sequencing and Scheduling,” Proceedings of the 2nd USA/EUROPE Air Traffic Management R & D Seminar, 1998.
[9]	G. C. Carr, H. Erzberger and F. Neuman, “Delay Exchanges in Arrival Sequencing and Scheduling,” Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 36, 1999, pp. 785-791. doi:10.2514/2.2534
[10]	R. Hoffman and M. O. Ball, “A Comparison of Formulations for the Single-Airport Ground-Holding Problem with Banking Constraints,” Operations Research, Vol. 48, No. 4, 2000, pp. 578-591. doi:10.1287/opre.48.4.578.12417
[11]	O. Richetta, “Optimal Algorithms and a Remarkably Efficient Heuristic for the Ground-Holding Problem in Air Traffic Control,” Operations Research, Vol. 43, No. 5, 1995, pp. 758-770. doi:10.1287/opre.43.5.758
[12]	M. Ball, T. Vossen and R. Hoffman, “A General Approach to Equity in Traffic Flow Management and Its Applications to Migrating Exemption Bias in Ground Delay Programs,” Proceedings of the 5th USA/EUROPE Air Traffic Management R & D Seminar, 2002.
[13]	T. Vossen and M. Ball, “Slot Trading Opportunities in Collaborative Ground Delay Programs,” Working Paper, 2003. http://mail3.rhsmith.umd.edu/Faculty/KM/papers.nsf
[14]	G. Andreatta, L. Brunetta and G. Guastalla, “Multi-Airport Ground Holding Problem: A Heuristic Approach Based on Priority Rules,” In: L. Bianco, P. Dell’Olmo and A. R. Odoni, Eds., Modeling and Simulation in Air Traffic Management, Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1997, pp. 71-89. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-60836-0_4
[15]	A. T. Ernst, M. Krishnamoorthy and R. H. Storer, “Heuristic and Exact Algorithms for Scheduling Aircraft Landings,” Networks, Vol. 34, 1999, pp. 229-241. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0037(199910)34:3<229::AID-NET8>3.0.CO;2-W
[16]	A. Cook, G. Tanner and S. Anderson, “Evaluating the True Cost to Airlines of One Minute of Airborne or Ground Delay,” University of Westminster for Performance Review Commission (EUROCONTROL), 2004. http://www.eurocontrol.int/prc
[17]	A. Cook, G. Tanner, V. Williams and G. Meise, “Dynamic Cost Indexing—Managing Airline Delay Costs,” Journal of Air Transport Management, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2009, pp. 26-35. doi:10.1016/j.jairtraman.2008.07.001
[18]	IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio V12.3, Inc., “Using the CPLEXR Callable Library and CPLEX Barrier and Mixed Integer Solver Options,” 2011. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/integration/optimization/cplex-optimization-studio