University of Pardubice

Transport Faculty

Essay
Terminal evaluation

Coordinator teacher
Ing. David ourek, Ph.D.
Coordinator teacher
Student:
Ing. David ourek, Ph.D.
Suditu Madalina-Gabriela

2015-2016

Content

1. Introduction
2. Models for terminal evaluation
2.1

AIRLAB model

2.2

SLAM model

3. Conclusion
4. References

1. Introduction

Un aeroport este ansamblul terenurilor, cldirilor i instalaiilor care deservesc

traficul aerian al unui ora sau al unei regiuni. Aceste amenajri sunt necesare decolrii
i aterizrii avioanelor, precum i manevrrii i adpostirii mrfii i pasagerilor.
Una din principalele cladiri ale unui aeroport este cladirea terminalului, in care
pasagerii sunt transferati, facilitatile acestora ce le permit imbarcarea si debarcarea de
la aeronave.
Airport passenger terminals offer a wide variety of functions. They facilitate
connections between transportation modes and between flights, control the movements
of air passengers (e.g., via ticket-holder check-in, customs clearance, immigration
control), and provide various supplemental services (e.g., shops, restrooms, dining
facilities, greeting areas, business and conference spaces) for departing passengers.
Universal design is now being required in public facilities such as airports.
Additionally, international airports play an important role as the gateway to a
country. Visitors from abroad form their first impressions of the country at the arrival
terminal. Thus, how to best offer hospitality to passengers, including visitors from
abroad, is a pressing issue for airport managers.
Comprehensive evaluation of airport passenger terminals is a key for planning,
designing, and managing airport performance. Numerous indices for measuring the
performance of broad airport terminal services and amenities have been developed by
air transportation agencies. These airport evaluations have primarily been based on
macroscopic indices, such as passenger numbers, aircraft movements, and boarding
rates. These measures, however, have been criticized because they do not take
passenger perspectives into account
Cele mai mari probleme ale acestor terminale sunt congestia, analizarea
capacitatii si reducerea intarzierielor, pentru satisfacerea necesitatilor pasagerilor.

2. Airport terminal evaluation models

In prezent, exista conceptul Level of Services (LOS) care este un manual de
orientare asupra planificarii de noi terminale, precum si pentru monitorizarea
performantelor serviciilor prestate de catre companiile aeriene si de catre managerii
aeroporturilor.
The airport landside facilities are divided into processing facilities (e.g., checkin, passport control, security screening, etc.), holding facilities (lounges, etc.) and flow
facilities (e.g., corridors, stairs, etc.)
In the new Airport Development Reference Manual (ADRM), the LOS system
has been revised to better reflect:
The dynamic natural of terminal operation and throughput;
The intention of increasing infrastructure effiency.
With the new LOS system when the managers need to planning terminal
processing facilities and corresponding passengers queuing areas, they must consider 2
important facts:

Space
Maximum Wainting Time.

2.1 AIRLAB model for terminal evaluation

AIRLAB is a new discrete-event simulation model of actions and decisions made

by arriving, departing and transfer passengers in the airport terminal buiding, as well
as their baggage movements.
This model for terminal evaluation is not a description for a particular terminal,
but it can be applied at all airports by suitable parameter tunning.
The basic characteristic for this new model for terminal evaluation is the flexible
implementation of behavioural model representing, the way passengers make decisions
in the terminal building on one hand, and the other hand about decisions policies
related to the operations in the terminal facilities.
Behavioural model is very simple to represent it because it is about the way
passengers make decisions when moving in terminal building, when they buy tickets,
spend time in a lounge.Also specific types of behaviour, like a longer stay in a lounge
because of a delay announcement, can be easily represented.These are dependent on
the on-line information on the flight schedule.
AIRLAB is a new generation model that overcomes, on a low cost platform,
typical problems of the old packages, suchs as large data requirements and lack of
flexibility. This model stresses flexibility in the definition and implementation of
alternative terminal building operating policies and in the modelling of passenger
behaviour.
The input data for this model can be divided in four groups:
Global parameters, characteristics about passengers and baggage
movements (times, speed, delay)
Facility related inputs, concerning characteristics of facility operations
(locations, areas, times)
Traffic data , about flight schedule and characteristics
Passenger routing, concerning about all passengers routes among facilities
and possible decisions
The output data after processing all input data, can be divided in three groups:

Processing facilities, reporting information about queues, wainting times

and service times
Holding areas, reporting about people amount, time spent, congestion
Passengers, reporting information about times spent inside the terminal
AIRLAB can model in a single run the landside of an airport of any size, including
multiple terminal airports, since it has no internal limits on the number of facilities or
the number of passengers it can accommodate.

2.2 SLAM model for terminal evaluation

Simple Landside Aggregate Model (SLAM) is part of an integrated model called
TAPE (Total Airport Performance Evaluation) and consists of a network of modules,
one of each facility of the terminal and these are based on a set of mathematical
formulas. Their objective is not to provide a thorough analysis of a given facility, but
to help in the estimation of the capacity of the facility.
For evaluating a processing facility, the SLAM model need a bidimensional
criteria who can takes into account both time and space. Time standards refere to the
time spent in the facility by a given percentage of the passengers, while the standard
space refere at the amount of the space per person that is available.
In the book Journal of Air Transport Management (1999), the author introduced
a variable that he called index of services (IOS), strictly related to the level of service
(LOS).
Typically, the aggregate model for a specific facility will consist of a simple
formula:
IOS=

Area
APADT

AP arriving passengers in facility during 1h

ADT average dwell time spent by a passenger in the facility
For example, if the Area in front of the check-in is 1500 m2, the number of
passengers arriving at the check-in during the Peak Hour is 3600, and the average
Dwell Time is 0.15 (hours), then the IOS for that facility is 2.78 (m2 per person).
Another example can be at a Passport Control facility AP = 2100, ADT = 2
minutes (0.033 hours), and we want to achieve a LOS = C, then the Area is given by:

Area = IOS AP ADT = 1.0 2100 0.033 = 70.0 m2.

In order to estimate the average dwell time (ADT) spent by a passenger in a

processing facility, the literature consider two different approaches.

The first one is based on classic queuing models (M/M/s or similar) and provides
a reasonable approximation of ADT under the assumptions that AP, the average
number of customers arriving to the processing facility, and the average potential
service volume of that same facility (let it be s) can both be considered
approximately constant over a significant period of time. The main drawback of this
approach is that it is difficult to obtain the steady state, i.e., AP must be strictly lower
than s. Of course, this approach will not be able to take into account the dynamic
effects of variations over time of AP or s.
The second approach is suggested when these dynamic effects are too important to
ignore. It utilizes a deterministic equivalent approximation that will follow exactly the
evolution over time of AP and s. Basically, this is a graphical model, that computes
approximately the total waiting time of passengers, given the cumulative arrival
function at the check-in counter and the service rate for each time period.
It was initially proposed by Newell (Newell, 1971) and extended-to representing
more than one flight-by Tosic et al. (1983).
SLAM is made of a graphical user interface, called SLAM-Workbench (SLAMWkb for short) and by an engine (SLAM-Solver). The task of SLAM-Wkb is to assist
the user in providing to SLAM the input data, then to start an elaboration, and finally
to present graphical and textual output.
The input of the program is composed by tables that contain: scheduling of the
flights, terminal physical configuration, allocation of the terminal resources to manage
the flights (policy data). LAM output is divided into 2 files: a textual and a graphical
output file. In the textual output file there are the results of SLAM elaboration for each
of the facility considered, while in the graphical output file there are the graph points
and the LOS levels (where required) for plotting facility charts.
In both output files a summary table with the LOS provided by each facility is
recorded. Results of a SLAM elaboration are provided for each facility or facility
component. The facilities considered are: Departure Concourse, Ticketing, Check-in,
Security, Passport control, Flow, Gate Lounge, Baggage claim, Customs, Arrival
Concourse.

3. Conclusion
The both models, AIRLAB and SLAM, was used in research on the Milan airport
terminal of Malpensa 2000 and on the Venice airport terminal Marco Polo, and now

those models will be used in Optimization Platform for Airports including Landside
research project for testing in six of the major airports from Europe (Frankfurt,
Toulouse, Amsterdam Schiphol and others).
Those two models. AIRLAB and SLAM, having the same object, they address
different needs of an airport manager and can be considered complementary to each
other.
The AIRLAB model is able to supply an extremely detailed description of all
movements considered as a whole. Moreover the representation is dynamic, in that the
evolution of system behaviour in time can be accurately reported. Therefore AIRLAB
is best suited to answer tactical or operational questions and can best help in fine
tuning the detailed parameters of selected facilities. But one disadvantage of the model
is the amount of computation time because it takes to long.
Although the SLAM model is more quicker than AIRLAB, simple and clear
instrument to evaluate the system behaviour during its peak period of time from an
point of view.SLAM is useful at a stratigic level in the planning phase when the main
parameters of the considered facilites have to be chosen or have to been compared.

4. References
Brunetta, L., L. Righi and G. Andreatta. 1999. An Operations Research Model For
The Evaluation Of An Airport Terminal: SLAM (Simple Landside Aggregate Model)
Journal of Air Traffic Management 5, 161-175.
Journal of Air Transport Management , Volume 5, Issue 3 , July 1999 , Pages 165175
http://www.iata.org/Pages/default.aspx
A Flexible Model for the Evaluation of an Airport Terminal. University of Padova,
Department
of
Information
Engineering.
http://www.dei.unipd.it/~brunetta/at_papers/br99.pdf. (As of July 9, 2007).