A computer simulation model for the design of airport terminal buildings

Abstract

The computer simulation model was developed by the ABACUS research team in the Department of Architecture and Building Science at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. The model is intended as an appraisal tool in the designing of airport terminal buildings such that the efficiency of alternative design solutions can be readily compared. This is essentially a ‘queueing model’ in which all possible activities in the terminal building are represented as a network of activity nodes, each of which is a potential queue situation where QUE size is determined by the exogenous variables ‘number of servers’ and ‘service time’. The simulation is time-based and monitors the variation in queue sizes over the time period being simulated for a given throughput of passengers, visitors, greeters etc. The model is deterministic and does not consider the effect of stochastic variations in service time. It is argued that such variations have little effect on systems as large and complex as airport terminals, however the same research team is investigating the inclusion of such techniques in the model.