Airport gate assignment based on improved GM(1,1) model

In order to improve the robustness of gate assignment, a strategy is proposed. It forecasts the arrival time and departure time of each flight, and then assigns flights to gates according to the forecasting results. To enhance the low forecasting precision of traditional GM(1,1) model for oscillating sequences, a moving operator is introduced to improve the traditional GM(1,1) model, and the improved GM(1,1) model well forecasts the arrival time and the gate occupation time of a flight. Then a 0–1 programming model is proposed. The objective is to minimize the passenger walking distances within the airport terminal area. A heuristic algorithm is designed for the model. Test results show that the gate assignment on the basis of forecasting results is better than that of flight schedule in both robustness and passenger satisfaction. The effectiveness and significance of the strategy is certified. The heuristic algorithm avoids the local optimal solutions, and has the same computational results with CPLEX and lower complexity compared with CPLEX.