Event Details

CENTRAL Forum

A Stochastic Integer ProgrammingApproach to Air Traffic Scheduling and Operations

Alexandre Jacquillat

MIT Sloan School of Management

Abstract: Air traffic management measures comprise tactical operating procedures to minimize delay costs, and strategic scheduling interventions to control over-capacity scheduling. Although interdependent, these problems have been treated in isolation. This paper proposes an Integrated Model of Scheduling and Operations in Airport Networks that jointly optimizes scheduling interventions and ground-holding operations across airports networks, under operating uncertainty. It is formulated as a two-stage stochastic program with integer recourse. To solve it, we develop an original decomposition algorithm with provable solution quality guarantees. The algorithm relies on new optimality cuts—dual integer cuts—which leverage the reduced costs of the dual linear programming relaxation of the second-stage problem. The algorithm also incorporates neighbourhood constraints, which shift from exploration to exploitation at later stages. Moreover, we propose a data-driven scenario generation procedure that constructs representative scenarios for stochastic programming from historical records of operations. Computational experiments show that our algorithm yields near-optimal solutions for the entire US National Airspace System network. Ultimately, the proposed approach enhances airport demand management models through scale integration (by capturing network-wide interdependencies) and scope integration (by capturing interdependencies between scheduling and operations).

Bio: Alexandre Jacquillat is an Assistant Professor of Operations Research and Statistics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research focuses on data-driven decision-making, spanning stochastic optimization, large-scaleoptimization, mechanism design and field experimentation. His primary application area lies in transportation systems, with the objective of promoting more efficient scheduling, operations and pricing practices. Alexandre is the recipient of several research awards, including the George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award and the Best Paper Prize in Transportation Science and Logistics from INFORMS.