Sensitivity analysis of counter utilization in an airport terminal

Abstract

Virtual Consultant Engineering is a multi-disciplined organization and was established in 1999. Currently they are situated across South Africa with offices in Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town. They have a variety of projects running from Infrastructure maintenance to project management services. For a new project they are developing a design proposal for an upgraded airport at Lanseria. The new design will differ a considerable amount from the current airport. The idea is to develop an airport, which will be able to control the same capacity and even more as O.R. Tambo International. In this project the passenger queue time will be observed using simulation techniques. The influence the number of checkpoints have on the system will be monitored. There are also possibilities of constraints in the process, which is identified and given possible solutions through constraint management. The time it will take a passenger from the terminal to the specific boarding station is calculated. Queuing Theory is used to explain the concept of a system. Time studies is done since it depicts what is actually happening in the system. The model provides passenger flow analysis obtained by using the simulation and generate trends for future references. New methodologies of biometric technology currently being tested on the market is investigated. In the simulation model, these methodologies is implemented to observe the affect it have on the system. Four different processes is used in the project. Sensitivity analysis is done on each of these process to identify the influence the changes in the system parameters have on the process. The utilization of the process counters is compared to the number of counters and the queue time of the passengers.