A regional airport is seeing an increase in passengers as the surrounding communities are developing and experiencing economic growth. However, this volume increase is causing the airport to be frequently plagued by congestion that could hinder the economic growth in the area. For this reason, the airport is evaluating improvement projects to help reduce the congestion and enhance passenger experience.
The airport is evaluating methods to reduce the congestion by targeting the time necessary for passengers to proceed through the airport (arrival, check-in, bag drop, security, arrive at gate). The airport has identified a few options to reduce passenger time in airport but is unsure which would have the most positive impact while factoring in cost and variability of passenger visits. The improvement options that are under consideration include improving and adding capacity to check in and security and/or adding a people mover within the terminal. The airport needs to assess these options and determine how to reduce passenger time in system in the most cost-effective manner.
In addition to the overcrowding occurring inside the airport, traffic congestion is becoming a problem at the terminal and surrounding roadways. The transit authority proposed adding separate bus routes to the airport in an effort to help alleviate this congestion. To incentive passengers to use the bus, the airport is considering expedited security just for bus riders. However, the airport is uncertain what the impact would be of implementing this proposal.
You are to develop a model of the current airport operations to serve as the baseline to compare the impact of the improvement options. Then evaluate the proposals (and suggest others) to provide an overall recommendation for the most cost-effective operations.