Abstract
This paper examines the question of how airport terminals ought to be designed to serve transfer passengers, an issue that designers generally neglect. The first section provides a procedure for calculating the number of transfers at airports in the United States, a statistic previously inaccessible; and shows how this figure has fluctuated at major hubs in recent years. These data also indicate that, as a general rule, the percentage of transfers at American airports equals the percentage of those that are on-line. The second section investigates the relative desirability of pier-finger and gate-arrival terminals, using the passengers' average walking distance as a criterion. Using the data on transfers, it appears that pier-finger configurations are preferable when the rate of total trasnfers exceeds 30%. With appropriate considweration of local circumstances and the fact that transfer rates can change significantly over a few years, this general rule can be used as one of the factors in choosing between designs for airport terminals.
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