Collaborative Rescheduling of Flights in a Single Mega-Hub Network
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New Jersey Institute of Technology Digital Commons @ NJIT Dissertations Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 5-31-2015 Collaborative rescheduling of flights in a single mega-hub network Sufian Ikhmeis New Jersey Institute of Technology Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/dissertations Part of the Industrial Engineering Commons Recommended Citation Ikhmeis, Sufian, "Collaborative rescheduling of flights in a single mega-hub network" (2015). Dissertations. 122. https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/dissertations/122 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at Digital Commons @ NJIT. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ NJIT. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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Please Note: The author retains the copyright while the New Jersey Institute of Technology reserves the right to distribute this thesis or dissertation Printing note: If you do not wish to print this page, then select “Pages from: first page # to: last page #” on the print dialog screen The Van Houten library has removed some of the personal information and all signatures from the approval page and biographical sketches of theses and dissertations in order to protect the identity of NJIT graduates and faculty. ABSTRACT COLLABORATIVE RESCHEDULING OF FLIGHTS IN A SINGLE MEGA-HUB NETWORK by Sufian Ikhmeis Traditionally, airlines have configured flight operations into a Hub and Spoke network design. Using connecting arrival departure waves at multiple hubs these networks achieve efficient passenger flows. Recently, there has been much growth in the development of global single mega-hub (SMH) flight networks that have a significantly different operating cost structure and schedule design. These are located primarily in the Middle East and are commonly referred to as the ME3. The traditionalist view is that SMH networks are money losers and subsidized by sovereign funds. This research studies and analyzes SMH networks in an attempt to better understand their flight efficiency drivers. Key characteristics of SMH airports are identified as: (i) There are no peak periods, and flight activity is balanced with coordinated waves (ii) No priority is assigned to arrival/departure times at destinations (selfish strategy) only hub connectivity is considered (iii) There is less than 5% OD traffic at SMH (iv) The airline operates only non-stop flights (v) Passengers accept longer travel times in exchange for economic benefits (vi) Airline and airport owners work together to achieve collaborative flight schedules. This research focuses on the network structure of SMH airports to identify and optimize the operational characteristics that are the source of their advantages. A key feature of SMH airports is that the airline and airport are closely aligned in a partnership. To model this relationship, the Mega-Hub Collaborative Flight Rescheduling (MCFR) Problem is introduced. The MCFR starts with an initial flight schedule developed by the airline, then formulates a cooperative objective which is optimized iteratively by a series of reschedules. Specifically, in a network of iM cities, the decision variables are 푖∗ the ∗ flight to be rescheduled, 퐷푖∗ the new departure time of flight to city 푖 and 퐻푖∗ the new hold ∗ time at the destination city 푖 . The daily passenger traffic is given by Ni,j and normally distributed with parameters μNi,j and σNi,j. A three-term MCFR objective function is developed to represent the intersecting scheduling decision space between airlines and airports: (i) Passenger Waiting Time (ii) Passenger Volume in Terminal, and (iii) Ground Activity Wave Imbalance. The function is non-linear in nature and the associated constraints and definitions are also non- linear. An EXCEL/VBA based simulator is developed to simulate the passenger traffic flows and generate the expected cost objective for a given flight network. This simulator is able to handle up to an M=250 flight network tracking 6250 passenger arcs. A simulation optimization approach is used to solve the MCFR. A Wave Gain Loss (WGL) strategy estimates the impact 푍푖 of flight shift ∆푖 on the objective. The WGL iteratively reschedules flights and is formulated as a non-linear program. It includes functions to capture the traffic affinity driven solution dependency between flights, the relationship between passengers in terminal gradients and flight shifts, and the relationship between ground traffic activity gradients and flight shifts. Each iteration generates a 푍푖 ranked list of flights. The WGL is integrated with the EXCEL/VBA simulator and shown to generate significant costs reduction in an efficient time. Extensive testing is done on a set of 5 flight network problems, each with 3 different passengers flow networks characterized by low, medium and high traffic concentrations. COLLABORATIVE RESCHEDULING OF FLIGHTS IN A SINGLE MEGA-HUB NETWORK by Sufian Ikhmeis A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial Engineering Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering May 2015 Copyright © 2015 by Sufian Ikhmeis ALL RIGHTS RESERVED APPROVAL PAGE COLLABORATIVE RESCHEDULING OF FLIGHTS IN A SINGLE MEGA-HUB NETWORK Sufian Ikhmeis Dr. Sanchoy Das, Dissertation Advisor Date Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, NJIT Dr. Reggie J. Caudill, Committee Member Date Interim Dean of the School of Management and Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, NJIT Dr. Athanassios Bladikas, Committee Member Date Associate Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, NJIT Dr. Wenbo Cai, Committee Member Date Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, NJIT Dr. Lazar Spasovic, Committee Member Date Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NJIT BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Author: Sufian Ikhmeis Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Date: May 2015 Undergraduate and Graduate Education: • Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 2015 • Master of Science in Industrial Engineering, Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, NY 2005 • Bachelor of Science in Management and Industrial Engineering, The University of Manila, Manila. Philippines, 1990 Major: Industrial Engineering Presentations and Publications: Das, S., and Ikhmeis, S., Scheduling Airline Flights through a Selfish Mega-Hub, POMS th 26 Annual Conference, Washington D.C., May (2015). iv This dissertation is dedicated to my beloved parents, My wife, Nisreen; my son Jafar; and my daughter, Guynah “Thank You.” v ACKNOWLEDGMENT I’m especially indebted to my advisor Dr Sanchoy Das, for his mentoring, assistance and support during the process. I would like to thank my committee members Dr. Reggie J. Caudill, Dr. Athanassios Bladikas, Dr. Wenbo Cai and Dr. Lazar Spasovic, for sharing with me their time, experience and guidance that resulted in a valuable contribution to my dissertation project. My colleagues and friends at NYU-Poly Industry Professors Michael Greenstein and Robert Albano for acting as a helpful discussions, comments, sounding board for professional guidance. Special Thanks to Ghafour Vala for helping me with VBA programming. To my wife, Nisreen, for her unfailing support and tolerance for late nights, missed dinners and other disruptions to her life while I pursued my dreams. To my children for inspiring me to create of a better world for them and for totally un-restrained love and joy they bring to my wife and me. A big thanks to all my brothers and sisters for their ultimate support specially my brother Mohammed. Thanks to the many others who helped with the writing, editing and re-editing of the dissertation. I’m eternally grateful to all your support in achieving my dream. I cannot express enough my thanks to all the people who have helped make this experience possible and memorable! vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page 1 INTRODUCTION…….....…........………...……………………………....... 1 1.1 The ME3 Global Mega-Hubs……………………………………......... 2 1.2 The Airline-Airport Partnership………………………………….….... 5 1.3 Research Objectives and Accomplishments…………………………... 6 1.4 Research Significance………………………………………………..... 8 2 LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………………….... 9 2.1 Introduction to Airline Scheduling…………………………….....…… 9 2.2 Hub-and-Spoke Network…………………………………………….... 11 2.2.1 Operating Characteristics...……………………………....….... 11 2.2.2 Spatial and Temporal Concentration………………………...... 16 2.2.3 Wave System Structure……………………………………….. 18 2.2.4 Continuous (Rolling) Hub………………………………….…. 20 2.3 The Middle East Mega Hub