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New heuristics for over-constrained flight to gate assignments

  • Case-oriented Paper
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Journal of the Operational Research Society

Abstract

We consider the over-constrained Airport Gate Assignment Problem where the number of flights exceed the number of gates available, and where the objectives are to minimize the number of ungated flights and the total walking distances. The problem is formulated as a binary quadratic programming problem. We design a greedy algorithm and use a Tabu Search meta-heuristic to solve the problem. The greedy algorithm minimizes ungated flights while we devise a new neighbourhood search technique, the Interval Exchange Move, which allows us flexibility in seeking good solutions, especially when flight schedules are dense in time. Experiments conducted give good results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National University of Singapore, Singapore

    H Ding

  2. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    A Lim & Y Zhu

  3. Singapore Management University, Singapore

    B Rodrigues

Authors
  1. H Ding
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  2. A Lim
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  3. B Rodrigues
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  4. Y Zhu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to B Rodrigues.

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Ding, H., Lim, A., Rodrigues, B. et al. New heuristics for over-constrained flight to gate assignments. J Oper Res Soc 55, 760–768 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601736

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601736

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