Bus Fleet Size Dimensioning in an International Airport Using Discrete Event Simulation

The continuous growth of airport operations generates continuous infrastructure expansion needs at international airports. In some cases, in the face of limitations in short-term expansions, the immediate solution is the creation of remote positions that allow a greater number of flights to be attended but which require the use of bus fleets to attend passenger boarding and disembarking operations. The sizing of the buses will allow to reduce the waiting times of flights below the level of service required by international standards. For this purpose, the development of a discrete event simulation model integrated to the transactional flight database is proposed. In the literature, although many references to simulation models have been found in airports, they have not been specifically focused in order to size and manage the bus fleet. Simulation experiments of this model under the management of scenarios allows to identify the bus fleet size required.