A comparison of two optimization approaches for airport taxiway and runway scheduling

Surface congestion causes significant taxi delays at busy airports. This paper proposes two different approaches to optimizing both taxiway and runway schedules simultaneously. The first is an integrated approach based on a single mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model, while the second is a sequential method that sequentially combines runway scheduling and taxiway scheduling algorithms. The two optimization approaches are compared and evaluated using flight schedules at Detroit airport (DTW), by analyzing several airport performance metrics. The effectiveness of the proposed optimization methods in the current operational environment is also investigated through fast-time surface traffic simulations.