A Bi-Objective Optimization Model for Integrated Gate Assignment and Departure Scheduling in Congested Airport Operations

Abstract

This study addresses an integrated airport gate assignment and departure scheduling problem under capacity constraints while explicitly accounting for the operational role of apron resources. A bi-objective mixed integer linear programming model is developed to jointly determine gate or apron assignments and departure times by considering passenger transfer times, taxi operations, runway separation, and schedule deviations. The first objective minimizes a normalized composite measure of passenger transfer burden, taxi penalties, and departure schedule deviation, whereas the second objective minimizes apron usage. The epsilon constraint method is used to generate exact Pareto-efficient solutions. Computational experiments on synthetically generated congested hub airport instances with 20 flights show that increasing physical gate capacity from 3 to 5 improves the average value of Objective 1 from 1.37 to 0.92 and reduces average apron usage from 10.00 to 4.00 flights. In the highlighted 20-flight and 5-gate scenario, increasing apron usage from 3 to 5 assignments reduces the standard deviation of departure time deviations from 8.0 to 7.6 min. The results show that selective apron usage improves system-level schedule stability and that gate capacity and apron flexibility should be evaluated jointly in tactical airport planning.