An Optimization Model for Reducing Aircraft Taxi times at the Dallas Fort worth International Airport

This paper presents an optimization model for an aircraft taxi-scheduling problem that arises on the surface of airports. Though formulations are already available for this problem in the literature, they either ignore aircraft type or do not include all the safety constraints that are required to keep any two aircraft separated by a minimum distance at any time instant. The proposed model improves on the previously known problem formulation in the literature and formulates the problem as a mixed integer linear program that takes into account the aircraft type and all necessary safety constraints. Solutions produced by the optimization model are then compared with the taxi times produced by a First Come First Serve (FCFS) algorithm to assess the benefits of optimization. Preliminary simulation results demonstrate that approximately six minutes of taxi time per aircraft can be saved for the surface traffic at DallasFort Worth International Airport using the optimization model as compared to the FCFS algorithm.