A Variation of the ATC Work Shift Scheduling Problem to Deal with Incidents at Airport Control Centers

Antonio Jiménez-Martín,Alfonso Mateos,Faustino Tello

doi:10.3390/math8030321

Antonio Jiménez-Martín, Alfonso Mateos + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/math8030321

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Journal: Mathematics	Publication Date: Mar 2, 2020
Citations: 3	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Abstract

This paper deals with a variation of the air traffic controller (ATC) work shift scheduling problem focusing on the tactical phase, in which the plan for the day of operations can be modified according to real-time traffic demand or other possible incidents (one or more ATCs become sick and/or there is an increase in unplanned air traffic), which may lead to a new sectorization and a lower number of available ATCs. To deal with these issues, we must reassign the available ATCs to the new sectorization established at the time the incident happens, but also taking into account the work done by the ATCs up to that point. We propose a new methodology consisting of two phases. The goal of the first phase is to build an initial possibly infeasible solution, taking into account the sectors that have been closed or opened in the new sectorization, together with the ATCs available after the incident. In the second phase, we use simulated annealing (SA) and variable neighborhood search (VNS) metaheuristics to derive a feasible solution in which the available ATCs are used and all the ATC labor conditions are met. A weighted additive objective function is used in this phase to account for the feasibility of the solution but also for the number of changes in the control center at the time the incident happens and the similarity of the derived solution with templates usually used by the network manager operations center, a center managing the air traffic flows of an entire network of control centers. The methodology is illustrated by means of seven real instances provided by the Air Traffic Management Research, Development and Innovation Reference Center (CRIDA) experts representing possible incidents that may arise. The solutions derived by SA outperform those reached by VNS in terms of both the number of violated constraints in all seven instances, and solution compactability in six out the seven instances, and both are very similar with regard to the number of control center changes at the time of the incident. Although computation times for VNS are clearly better than for SA, CRIDA experts were satisfied with SA computation times. The solutions reached by SA were preferred.

Highlights

Air transport is growing exponentially, from the 3.8 billion air travelers in 2016 to 7.2 billion passengers expected to travel in 2035, according to the International Air Transport Association [1].air transport and the resulting shortage of laborers in the civil aviation industry has become a serious problem
To solve the problem we propose a methodology that utilizes the metaheuristics simulated annealing and variable neighborhood search, which consists of two phases
This paper proposes a methodology for reassigning available Air traffic controller (ATC) to air sectors after the occurrence of an incident, such as one or more ATCs having to be relieved and/or a change in sectorization due to an increase in air traffic

Summary

Introduction

Air transport is growing exponentially, from the 3.8 billion air travelers in 2016 to 7.2 billion passengers expected to travel in 2035, according to the International Air Transport Association [1].air transport and the resulting shortage of laborers in the civil aviation industry has become a serious problem. The role of the network manager (NM) is to establish a balance between air traffic demand and airspace/airport capacity in Europe. Currently, this role is merely moderation between aircraft operators and capacity providers, since the NM has limited instruments to influence either capacity or demand side planning decisions [2,3]. The European Commission recognizes that the lack of the NM’s clear executive powers in practice means that the NM tends to decide by consensus, which often results in weak compromises [4]. The European Commission stresses that an optimization of the network performance requires an extended operation scope of actions by the NM, a view shared by Ryanair [5]

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