The megaregion spatial form has grown in prominence in recent years in planning thought, but the relationship between megaregions and the aviation sector is rather untouched in research. The purpose of this study is to examine the role airports play as transportation hubs for megaregions, and how the megaregions are connected through air traffic. Comparing the megaregions involved an empirical study using attribute data about the megaregions and the flows between them. The infrastructure in the megaregions was compared by density and type of airports, including an examination into airline hubs. The connectivity between megaregions, non-megaregion areas, and the international market was analyzed employing T-100 data, separating the analysis for the passenger and freight sectors. The top flows in the country were examined, along with the relationships each megaregion has individually, and particularly their internal flows. Megaregions are much more active in air travel than non-megaregion areas due to a larger presence of airline hubs and greater infrastructure. The international component of the passenger and freight sectors is growing the fastest in relation to megaregions, but only for the freight sector is this the largest component. The largest component of the passenger sector is the flows between megaregions. Flows within megaregions for the passenger sector are growing slowly and are declining in the freight sector, but short-haul air traffic continues to be the cause of congestion. The megaregion is a suitable level to manage infrastructure investment to better prepare the regions for the coming growth. A megaregion-level institution is best suited to managing the issues which must be faced by the numerous jurisdictions.

Today, airports form a key part of global infrastructure in an increasingly globalised world. There is great competition between them to attract passengers and serve airlines in their role of transporting people regionally and internationally. Abu Dhabi International Airport is one such airport. Terminal 3 is the home of Abu Dhabi’s major carrier, Etihad Airways, one of the world’s fastest-growing international airlines. The research described in this thesis focuses on applying the Lean methodology to the passenger departure process in Terminal 3. The essential essence of ‘Lean’ is doing more with fewer resources by adopting a programme of continuous process improvement resulting in continually declining costs, mistakes and work-in-progress. The special environment of any airport, especially a major international hub made applying Lean principles difficult. This resulted from the large presence of Class I wastes or muda which could potentially change, perhaps dramatically, at short notice. This made this research significantly different from previous applications of Lean philosophy. Also, large, cumulative variations in demand set in an environment where rapid expansion of the airport is taking place also created major difficulties because of the shifting flow of passengers. Despite this, the research succeeded in achieving its aim and developed various rules from parameters based on the acronym SERVICE and an associated implementation methodology based on the Lean philosophy. Together these will help airline managers and staff to eliminate the waste of available resources and so increase passenger flow through various stages of the process in line with Lean philosophy. The research makes several important contributions to knowledge, especially in the field of Lean improvements. The contribution of this work arises from its systematic examination of the passenger departure process. The research has facilitated developing a detailed model which addresses both particular process groups and the effects of passenger class on the allocation and use of resources. This research has shown that large differences exist between the operating environment of a major international airport and those processes to which Lean principles have previously been applied. Nevertheless, despite these differences, this research has proved the Lean philosophy may be usefully applied to airport operations. Operating conditions within the passenger departure process mean that understanding the special operating environment of airports is vital. This research resulted in a discrete event simulation model of the airport much more accurate and detailed than those described in previous studies of passenger departure processes. The research then proved an improved model, which may be used experimentally to support conclusions reached from the broader application of Lean philosophy. The research observed and analysed the effects of large and cumulative peaks and troughs in demand against a background of rapid development of Abu Dhabi Airport. The researcher also evaluated the special internal and external effects on the processes, often at short notice. Consequently, there is no single ‘universal’ solution because of the major need for operational flexibility and for a close correlation between operational and strategic need. Despite these many difficulties the results of this research are a practical and straightforward series of improvements, which may be applied by airport staff themselves without need for complex computer models, simulation or dedicated experts. This will create conditions for continuously improving process performance during the passenger departure process. It will also help managers accurately identify critical areas where more radical action of increasing physical resources is needed. Finally, based on findings, the research makes several recommendations for further work.

This thesis is a simulation study aimed to improve the common-use check-in process at SAS Ground Handling operating at Arlanda Airport. The study sought to determine how to design the common-use check-in to minimize waiting times, reduce resource use, and increase the share of passengers checked in within service level targets. The simulation study was performed using Arena Simulation Software, testing different check-in setups which experimented with which flights were included in the common-use check-in solution, how many flows there would be for each booking class, and which flights would be allocated to each flow. The study found that changing how economy passenger flows are organized and how flights are divided between check-in flows could improve efficiency. The study concludes that the existing common-use check-in solution should continue to handle current assigned flights and recommends dividing the economy passenger flow into two separate flows based on passenger service times. / <p>Examensarbetet är utfört vid Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap (ITN) vid Tekniska fakulteten, Linköpings universitet</p>

Der stetig steigende Flugverkehr führt zu Kapazitätsengpässen an vielen Großflughäfen. Die Möglichkeit des Ausbaus ist häufig aufgrund von Arealmangel und Widerstand aus der Bevölkerung (zumeist durch Umweltgesichtspunkte motiviert) nicht realisierbar. Ein Ausweg bietet hier die Kooperation mehrerer Flughäfen. So kann ein in der Nähe eines Großflughafens angesiedelter Regionalflughafen als zusätzliche Runwaygenutzt werden. Ausschlaggebend hierbei sind die landseitigen Anbindungen beider Flughäfen. Beide müssen zusammen annähernd wie ein Flughafen operieren. Der Optimierung dieses Systems kooperierender Flughäfen widmet sich die vorliegende Arbeit. Es werden zwei Szenarien näher untersucht und bewertet: Konventionelle S-Bahn-Verbindung unter Ausnutzung der vorhandenen Infrastruktur und mit einem fixen Fahrplan (traditioneller Betrieb) Verbindung unter Nutzung einer vollautomatischen Bahn mit bedarfsabhängiger Anpassung der Taktrate Die Modellierung erfolgt hierbei durch eine makroskopische Simulation auf der Basis des SYSTEM DYNAMICS Zugangs nach Forrester. Dieser zeichnet sich besonders durch seine prozessnahe Darstellung aus. In dieser Arbeit wird die Anwendbarkeit von SYSTEM DYNAMICS auf die Modellierung von Passagierströmen an Verkehrsknoten nachgewiesen, die Passagierverzögerung bei der Verknüpfung von Flughäfen ermittelt und der Ressourcenverbrauch, d.h. der Bedarf an Betriebsmitteln für die Verbindung bestimmt. / Steadily increasing air traffic leads to capacity problems at many major airports. In most cases it is not possible to enlarge the airport due to lack of area or resistance of the population (mainly motivated by environmental aspects). One way out is the cooperation of airports. It can be possible to use a smaller airport in the vicinity of a major airport as an additional runway. In this case the land-side connections between both airports are very important. The two airports have to operate like one big airport. This work deals with the optimization of the system of cooperating airports. Two scenarios are analyzed and rated in more detail: Conventional railway connection with utilization of existing infrastructure and with a fixed time table (traditional operational regime) Connection with an automated people mover with demand control schedule For macroscopic modeling the SYSTEM DYNAMICS approach by Forrester is used. The main feature is a very good real world representation. This work shows the applicability of SYSTEM DYNAMICS for modeling passenger flows at traffic junctions, calculates the passenger delay, which occurs between connected airports and specifies the consumption of resources, i.e. equipment necessary for the connection.

Der stetig steigende Flugverkehr führt zu Kapazitätsengpässen an vielen Großflughäfen. Die Möglichkeit des Ausbaus ist häufig aufgrund von Arealmangel und Widerstand aus der Bevölkerung (zumeist durch Umweltgesichtspunkte motiviert) nicht realisierbar. Ein Ausweg bietet hier die Kooperation mehrerer Flughäfen. So kann ein in der Nähe eines Großflughafens angesiedelter Regionalflughafen als zusätzliche Runwaygenutzt werden. Ausschlaggebend hierbei sind die landseitigen Anbindungen beider Flughäfen. Beide müssen zusammen annähernd wie ein Flughafen operieren. Der Optimierung dieses Systems kooperierender Flughäfen widmet sich die vorliegende Arbeit. Es werden zwei Szenarien näher untersucht und bewertet: Konventionelle S-Bahn-Verbindung unter Ausnutzung der vorhandenen Infrastruktur und mit einem fixen Fahrplan (traditioneller Betrieb) Verbindung unter Nutzung einer vollautomatischen Bahn mit bedarfsabhängiger Anpassung der Taktrate Die Modellierung erfolgt hierbei durch eine makroskopische Simulation auf der Basis des SYSTEM DYNAMICS Zugangs nach Forrester. Dieser zeichnet sich besonders durch seine prozessnahe Darstellung aus. In dieser Arbeit wird die Anwendbarkeit von SYSTEM DYNAMICS auf die Modellierung von Passagierströmen an Verkehrsknoten nachgewiesen, die Passagierverzögerung bei der Verknüpfung von Flughäfen ermittelt und der Ressourcenverbrauch, d.h. der Bedarf an Betriebsmitteln für die Verbindung bestimmt. / Steadily increasing air traffic leads to capacity problems at many major airports. In most cases it is not possible to enlarge the airport due to lack of area or resistance of the population (mainly motivated by environmental aspects). One way out is the cooperation of airports. It can be possible to use a smaller airport in the vicinity of a major airport as an additional runway. In this case the land-side connections between both airports are very important. The two airports have to operate like one big airport. This work deals with the optimization of the system of cooperating airports. Two scenarios are analyzed and rated in more detail: Conventional railway connection with utilization of existing infrastructure and with a fixed time table (traditional operational regime) Connection with an automated people mover with demand control schedule For macroscopic modeling the SYSTEM DYNAMICS approach by Forrester is used. The main feature is a very good real world representation. This work shows the applicability of SYSTEM DYNAMICS for modeling passenger flows at traffic junctions, calculates the passenger delay, which occurs between connected airports and specifies the consumption of resources, i.e. equipment necessary for the connection.

The increasing population leads to higher passenger travel demand in Stockholm. The public transport becomes more and more crowded in rush hours. However, passengers carry out decisions usually based on limited traffic information and their travel experience. Passengers cannot take the initiative to avoid crowding based on existing SL traffic information. Real time crowding information (RTCI) research aims to help passenger to have more initiative to plan their travel in metro system, and assist operator to have higher space utilization efficiency. RTCI system contains4 subsystems: projection system, communication system, speaker system and recording system. The practical test was applied in Tekniska Högskolan metro station for two weeks in May 2015 with the permission from SL. The triangle analysis was applied to analyze the impacts of RTCI. The analysiscontains three analysis methods: passenger load data analysis, video record analysis and interview result analysis. The interview result shows RTCI increased round nine tenth of passengers ‘satisfaction and 43% of interviewees thought it was very useful for them. The calculation based on video record and interview result shows that 25% of passengers consulted this information and changed their behaviors on platform. According to the video record, the path became wider and passenger flow became smoother while RTCI system was activated. Passenger distribution was more even in metro based on passenger load data. The number of passengers who got into last unit train increased 8%, and the number in first and second unit train decreased 4% during RTCI practical test. The thesis mainly focused to analyze the impacts of RTCI instead of solving technical challenges. But the technical solution for RTCI system was proposed in thesis. The concept - “Smart Travel” was discussed in chapter11 which mainly considers travel time, crowding information and travel cost as most important factors to passenger.