Fuzzy Model for Multi-objective Airport Gate Assignment Problem

Abstract

To address the increasing demand for air transportation the management allocation and efficient utilization of limited airport resources such as bridge-equipped gates are of paramount importance to improve the efficiency of the air transportation system. Bridge-equipped gates are scarce and immobile resources have a significant impact on airport management airlines and passenger convenience when utilized properly. Hence the gate assignment problem is an important problem involving multiple stakeholders with conflicting objectives. This study proposes a fuzzy model to tackle two objectives: maximization of overall utility of flight-gate assignments and maximization of the robustness of the assignment schedule simultaneously. Fuzzy variables are employed in order to represent the uncertainty of idle times between two consecutive flights served by the same bridge-equipped gate and their membership degrees express their effect on assignment robustness. An adjustment function is applied to combine these two objective functions into one. To handle this NP-hard problem in a reasonable amount of computational time a constructive heuristic algorithm is employed. The performance of the proposed fuzzy model is evaluated with the help of various test in instances of different sizes Two fuzzy distribution functions are tested and their comparison is provided. The simulation results demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the fuzzy model in addressing multi-objective airport gate assignment problem. © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.