Browsing by Author "Jimenez Perez, Edgar"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Dynamic evolution of European airport systems in the context of low-cost carriers growth
    (Elsevier, 2017-07-07) Jimenez Perez, Edgar; Claro, João; Pinho de Sousa, Jorge; de Neufville, Richard
    Airport systems adapted to the influx of Low-Cost Carriers (LCC) as the segment grew in prominence in the European market during the last decades. The generalised perspective that LCCs are attached to remote secondary airports is being increasingly challenged by recent moves of the largest European LCC. The reality is that the impact of LCCs has spread to most commercial airports in Europe, primary and secondary alike. Yet, despite valuable insights on the evolution of airline networks, the existing literature lacks a clear understanding of why this has occurred. This paper explains the dynamics in the evolution of airports systems that resulted in significant growth for the low-cost segment in Europe. A multiple case study involving 42 European airports was used to identify the mechanisms that triggered the traffic patterns leading to the ascendency of LCCs in their respective airport systems. Understanding these mechanisms may prove valuable for supporting airport strategic planning.
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    Flexible facility requirements for strategic planning of airport passenger terminal infrastructure
    (Taylor & Francis, 2023-11-30) Waltert, Manuel; Jimenez Perez, Edgar; Pagliari, Romano
    Facility requirements determine how and when the capacity of airport passenger terminal facilities is adjusted over time to meet expected demand. Given high levels of uncertainty inherent in long-term airport planning, under and over provision of capacity is a recurrent risk, as conventional strategic planning methods fail to adapt dynamically to changing circumstances. This paper introduces a novel flexible capacity expansion model for airport terminals that considers simultaneously real options ‘on’ and ‘in’ systems. The model is validated for the provision of check-in facilities at Zurich Airport. Results confirm suggestions in the literature that incorporating flexibility creates planning and financial advantages over conventional alternatives. Indeed, for the case of Zurich, the financial value of the flexible alternative is approximately 5% higher than the best conventional phased plan. This also suggests that phasing developments can be carefully devised to produce satisfactory outcomes that enable ex-post application of flexibility ‘on’ systems.
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    Fractal assessment analysis of China's air-HSR network integration
    (Elsevier, 2023-12-28) Lu, Mengyuan; Jimenez Perez, Edgar; Mason, Keith; He, Yin
    High-speed rail (HSR) has emerged as a significant mode for intercity transport in several countries, particularly China, setting an environment that may promote integration between air and HSR networks. To better measure the current level of integration of China's air-HSR intermodal network and identify implementation issues, this paper establishes a novel assessment framework that considers three primary areas: service capability, network connectivity and transfer potential. The framework is based on a comprehensive literature review of network measurement and assessment methodologies. Then, fractal theory is used to establish an assessment model that associates the fractal dimension to the level of intermodal integration, which can serve as an important complement to traditional weighting methods. The model and framework are applied to the 10 cities in China with the potential for air-HSR integration. The results show that international hub airports, together with their closest HSR station, do not necessarily perform at a higher integration level than regional hubs. The paper also proposes policy and practical recommendations to enhance air-HSR network integration levels from service supply, network coordination and transfer design perspectives.
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    Identifying the true European ‘low-cost airports'
    (Universidade da Beira Interior, 2019-10-11) Jimenez Perez, Edgar; Suau-Sanchez, Pere
    This paper discusses the long-term effects of low-cost carrier (LCC) presence at European airports and identifies the airports that have benefited the most from LCC consolidation during the current century. The research uses ‘LCC Market Share’, in terms of seats, to measure the relative importance of LCCs within each airport; and introduces ‘EU LCA Rank’ as a normalised metric of the capacity share of every airport in the European low-cost segment. It evaluates the trends between 2001 and 2018 in a sample of the 300 largest European airports, by total seats in 2018, using OAG supply information (seats by carrier). Results highlight the role that LCCs have played in boosting the growth of airports, both primary and secondary, that were keen to appreciate the development of the low-cost segment earlier. Indeed, despite the fact that LCCs have put many airports on the European map, during the second half of the period of analysis growth has been more significant for major airports. In that sense, this paper contributes a better understanding of the recent dynamics in European LCCs choice of airports and, in particular, the long-term effects that this disruptive business model have had for airports.
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    Integrated multimodal airport operations for efficient passenger flow management: Two case studies
    (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, 2022-12-06) Rothe, Henrik; Jimenez Perez, Edgar; Moxon, Rich; Ellis, Darren; et al.,
    Predictive models and decision support tools allow information sharing, common situational awareness and real-time collaborative decision-making between airports and ground transport stakeholders. To support this general goal, IMHOTEP has developed a set of models able to anticipate the evolution of an airport’s passenger flows within the day of operations. This is to assess the operational impact of different management measures on the airport processes and the ground transport system. Two models covering the passenger flows inside the terminal and of passengers accessing and egressing the airport have been integrated to provide a holistic view of the passenger journey from door-to-gate and vice versa. This paper describes IMHOTEP’s application at two case study airports, Palma de Mallorca (PMI) and London City (LCY), at Proof of Concept (PoC-level) assessing impact and service improvements for passengers, airport operators and other key stakeholders. For the first time one measurable process is created to open up opportunities for better communication across all associated stakeholders. Ultimately the successful implementation will lead to a reduction of the carbon footprint of the passenger journey by better use of existing facilities and surface transport services, and the delay or omission of additional airport facility capacities.
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    Ratio-based design hour determination for airport passenger terminal facilities
    (Elsevier, 2021-08-04) Waltert, Manuel; Wicki, Jan; Jimenez Perez, Edgar; Pagliari, Romano
    To avoid both over-design and under-sizing of airport passenger terminal facilities such as security checkpoints, the infrastructure is designed for a specifically determined design load. As such, the design load is considered for a short period of time, usually an hour of operation, during which peak, though not necessarily maximum, demand occurs. For strategic planning applications, future design loads can be determined by either fictitious flight schedules or ratio-based models which forecast the relationship between design load and annual demand. This study presents two ratio-based methods which allow the direct determination of design hour loads (DHL) for passenger terminal facilities. The unsaturated DHL model considers the relationship between observed passenger flows in the terminal and aggregated annual demand data. The saturated DHL model includes several operational constraints which limit the actual DHL, such as limitations in the runway system or the fleet mix operating at an airport. Both models are applied to two real-world airports, for which the DHL of the security checkpoint facilities is estimated from large datasets covering multiple years. Results are significant at the 5 % level and suggest that the proposed ratio-based methods are appropriate for airport strategic planning applications.
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    Strategic capacity planning framework for airport passenger terminal facilities.
    (Cranfield University, 2022-02) Waltert, Manuel; Pagliari, Romano; Jimenez Perez, Edgar
    Facility requirements describe how the capacity of a facility should be adjusted over time to meet the expected future demand levels. Practitioners use them to determine the strategic development of airport passenger terminal facilities. The generation of facility requirements is extraordinarily complex, since (i) airport strategic planning is subject to high levels of uncertainty due to the extremely long planning horizons considered, and (ii) investments in infrastructure are subject to irreversibility. This study presents a strategic capacity planning framework consisting of two modules, by means of which stochastically optimal facility requirements for airport passenger terminal facilities can be determined. The demand module is applied first. Its purpose is twofold: on the one hand, to create annual aggregated demand scenarios of an airport by means of geometric Brownian motion. On the other hand, to convert these scenarios into facility-specific design hour loads with the help of linear regression models. Subsequently, the capacity expansion problem module is used to determine conventional and flexible facility requirements that maximize the net present value of an airport passenger terminal facility. For this purpose, both conventional and flexible capacity expansion problem models, presented in the literature, are adapted to the needs of airport strategic planning. Subsequently, they are solved with evolutionary optimization algorithms. The framework is applied to a real-world planning example of the existing check- in facilities at Zurich Airport. The aim of the planning example is to compare flexible facility requirements with conventional facility requirements in terms of their economic value, and to investigate how sensitive the proposed models are to variations in several input factors. The results suggest that flexible facility requirements are generally more valuable than conventional facility requirements. Moreover, the models applied in this study respond to changes in input factors in a similar way to comparable models documented in the literature.