Variable neighbourhood search for the integrated runway sequencing, taxiway scheduling, and gate reassignment problem

With the rapid development of air transportation, the surface management of large airports has become more complicated. This paper proposes an integrated scheduling model of arrival aircraft (ISAA), in which complex constraints related to runway restrictions, gate assignment and taxiway conflicts are incorporated. With the aim of reducing the total passenger runway delay, passenger taxi delay, and passenger swap cost, the model is built as a set partition model. We propose various neighbourhood search (VNS) algorithm for solving the problem. A variable neighbourhood descent (VND) as local search is integrated into the general variable neighbourhood framework. This method is compared with a sequential method that solves runway sequencing, gate reassignment and taxiway scheduling problem separately. Numerical results based on Nanjing Lukou Internation Airport indicate that, although the swap cost for gate reassignment is slightly increased, the whole performance is significantly improved.