A simulation approach to modelling baggage handling systems at an international airport

Abstract

The baggage handling system is a critical component of an airport’s operations, coordinating many different elements and agents in different areas of the facility. Due to the complexity of their interrelationships, an effective analysis of the impact of different operating strategies on the system must consider these elements and agents not in isolation from each other but rather as an integrated whole. This paper presents a microscopic simulation model for a baggage handling system that fully integrates all baggage-related subsystems. These include passenger arrival to check-in queues, baggage check-in, security screening, sorting, transport to the aircraft and loading. Under this approach, not only the individual subsystems but also their interactions can be simulated and studied. The proposed simulator is applied to the case of Santiago International Airport in Chile where passenger demand has grown beyond the existing baggage handling system’s operating capacity. The principal contributions of this study are the extension and adaptation of a vehicle traffic simulator software to the baggage handling problem and the development of a platform that models baggage handling as an integrated unit. The tool is applied to the analysis of the overall system and its components under a number of different real-world scenarios. In this application, the movement of bags and their interactions with the rest of the system are simulated in great detail for a given period. This level of granularity permits the simulator to analyse accurately the effects of different scenarios and how they are propagated through the system.