Integrated Tractor and Trailer Scheduling for Airport Baggage Transport Service

Airport baggage transport is a key aspect of airport ground handling which involves transporting passenger baggage between the baggage handling center and aircraft stands. Typically, tractors and trailers are used to implement the baggage transport service under the drop-and-pull mode in practice. Efficient airport baggage transport service is essential to reduce flight delays, save airport ground handling costs, and guarantee aviation safety. However, the existing methods for scheduling tractors and trailers perform poorly when dealing with high flight volumes at busy hub airports, leading to delayed responses for baggage transport demands. Besides, few works have explored the significance of the drop-and-pull mode in improving airport baggage transport service equality. Thus, to enhance the efficiency of airport baggage transport service and reduce airport ground handling costs, this paper presents an integrated tractor and trailer scheduling problem under the drop-and-pull mode. Then, an improved Genetic Algorithm (GA) is developed to solve this problem. Finally, simulation experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the model and algorithm.