AsianScientist (Jan. 22, 2019) – Scientists in Japan have invented technology to simulate, model, predict and prevent airport congestion. They announced their findings at the Winter Simulation Conference 2018.
Airports around the world are reaching or are operating beyond their maximum capacity due to the growing number of passengers and cargoes. Measures are being taken to alleviate congestion, such as by increasing the number of staff on the ground or by expanding airports. However, tackling congestion also requires a deep understanding of human behavior in response to available information.
Hence, Professor Shingo Takahashi of the Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at Waseda University and Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., Japan, developed a technique to automatically analyze the factors leading to congestion based on the results of human behavior simulations.
“The new technology groups categories that have a certain degree of commonality and expresses the characteristics of respective agents (which represents a diverse group of people) in a small number of combination categories. [Our method does not require] listing the movements and routes of tens or hundreds of thousands of agents individually through simulation-based modeling, making it easier to discover the cause of congestion,” explained Takahashi.
Takahashi added that the insights provided by their analysis help airport managers come up with measures to change the mindset or actions of specific groups of people who contribute to airport congestion. Using their method, they were able to discover approximately four times as many causes of congestion in comparison to analysis by experts.
In addition to tackling airport congestion, the researchers noted that their technology could also ameliorate congestion in commercial facilities, event venues and other locations with high attendance or urban centralization.
———
Source: Waseda University; Photo: Pexels.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
