Airport Automated People Mover Systems: Analysis with a Hybrid Computer Simulation Model

Automated people movers (APMs) have become an attractive solution to mobility problems associated with large airport terminals. A hybrid computer simulation model (called APMSIM) that has been developed to simplify the operational analysis of airport APM systems is presented. Given an airport passenger demand function, along with various APM vehicle technology and airport terminal characteristics, the model estimates timevarying level-of-service characteristics of the terminal including queues and processing times. The model simulates the movement of individual passengers and APM vehicles in the system network. APMSIM constitutes a design tool for airport planners and designers for determination of the sensitivity of system performance for a range of APM design parameters, examination of the flexibility of an APM system under given operational policy and network configurations, and estimation of APM vehicle energy consumption on the basis of network constraints and system characteristics. The model is a hybrid discrete-event and continuous simulation model developed in EXTEND, a general-purpose simulation software.