Multiobjective Departure Runway Scheduling Using Dynamic Programming

At busy airports, air traffic controllers seek to find schedules for aircraft at the runway that aim to minimize delays of the aircraft while maximizing runway throughput. In reality, finding optimal schedules by a human controller is hard to accomplish since the number of feasible schedules available for the scheduling problem is quite large. In this paper, we pose this problem as a multiobjective optimization problem, with respect to total aircraft delay and runway throughput. Using principles of multiobjective dynamic programming, we develop an algorithm to find a set of Pareto-optimal solutions that completely specify the nondominated frontier. In addition to finding these solutions, this paper provides a proof of the algorithm's correctness and gives an analysis of its performance against a baseline algorithm using the operational data for a model of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.