Airport Landside Simulation Model Alsim PDF Download

The Airport Simulation Model (ALSIM), available from NTIS as the tape volume ALSTIS, represents the flow of passengers and vehicles through the airport terminal area. This model simulates queueing and service processes at all essential landside facilities. ALSIM uses an input flight schedule to generate transactions representing passenger groups and accompanying visitors in a time-dependent manner. These transactions are directed to simulated facilities by the use of routine functions applicable to passenger types. Flow, occupancy and instantaneous queue length values are produced periodically as simulated time progresses. At the end of the predetermined simulation time period, summary statistics describing queueing and service processes are produced. The model uses random number generation based upon input distributions to produce service times, routing changes and transaction status assignments. A set of runs with altered random number streams are required to provide useable output statistics. Computer run times are dependent upon factors such as airport size, simulated time specified and passenger demand. As an example, ALSIM requires approximately 7 minutes of central processor time on an IBM 370/158 to produce a single simulation run for a 100 gate airport with a traffic load of 20,000 passengers over a three-hour period using one transaction to represent two passenger groups.