Evaluation of Boarding Methods Adapted for Social Distancing When Using Apron Buses

Abstract

Social distancing reduces the risk of people becoming infected with the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). When passengers are transported from an airport terminal to an airplane using apron buses, safe social distancing during pandemic times reduces the capacity of the apron buses and has led to the practice of airlines keeping the middle seats of the airplanes unoccupied. This paper adapts classical boarding methods so that they may be used with social distancing and apron buses. We conduct stochastic simulation experiments to assess nine adaptations of boarding methods according to four performance metrics. Three of the metrics are related to the risk of the virus spreading to passengers during boarding. The fourth metric is the time to complete boarding of the two-door airplane when apron bus transport passengers to the airplane. Our experiments assume that passengers advancing to their airplane seats are separated by an aisle social distance of 1 m or 2 m. Numerical results indicate that the three variations (adaptations) of the Reverse pyramid method are the best candidates for airlines to consider in this socially distanced context. The particular adaptation to use depends on an airline's relative preference for having short boarding times versus a reduced risk of later boarding passengers passing (and thereby possibly infecting) previously seated window seat passengers. If an airline considers the latter risk to be unimportant, then the Reverse pyramid-Spread method would be the best choice because it provides the fastest time to board the airplane and is tied for the best values for the other two health risk measures.

Adapting the reverse pyramid airplane boarding method for social distancing in times of COVID-19

“…When a conflict prevents the third principle from being applied, nearly equal numbers of aisle seat passengers are assigned to each group. The first two principles were established in [ 60 ], while the third principle is new with this manuscript. All three principles reflect design choices that minimize the number of times later-boarding passengers pass (and thereby possibly infect) previously seated passengers who are occupying the nearby aisle seats.…”

“…A recent paper [ 60 ] adapted classical boarding methods for social distancing conditions when 10 apron bus trips (corresponding to 10 boarding groups) transport passengers from the airport terminal to a two-door airplane. The authors evaluate the boarding methods according to the same four performance metrics we use in this paper.…”

“…If the risk to window seat passengers becoming infected by later-boarding passengers is significant, then the Reverse Pyramid–Steep method would be the best choice because it is safer for window seat passengers and its boarding times are nearly as fast as those resulting from the Reverse Pyramid–Spread method. Of the methods tested by [ 60 ], the Reverse Pyramid methods had the best overall health risks—safer than the other methods—and the best boarding times.…”

“…The Reverse Pyramid–Spread and Reverse Pyramid–Steep methods were designed for use with 10 apron bus trips and a two-door airplane [ 60 ] under social distance conditions. We generalize the approach of these two methods to work for a general number of boarding groups (between two and six) for use with a jet-bridge connecting the airport terminal to the front door of the airplane.…”

COVID-19 pandemic and air transportation: Successfully navigating the paper hurricane

“…The optimal choice for aircraft boarding depends on a wide range of interacting variables, including aircraft characteristics, load factor, patterns and limitations on passenger movements, size/presence of hand luggage, types of passenger inferences and disturbances, number of boarding groups, preservation of aisle symmetries, reliability of boarding time predictions and many more ( Bazargan, 2007 ; Schultz, 2018 ; Tang et al, 2012 ; Zeineddine, 2017 ). In the literature, three most-frequently used boarding methods considered for aircraft boarding pre-COVID-19, while using the front and rear door are: Back-to-front, Outside-in (also called WilMA), and Reverse pyramid ( Milne et al, 2020 ); other methods include by-seat-number ( Steffen, 2008 ), random boarding, and zone boarding. See ( Delcea et al, 2018 ) for an experimental comparison of more than 20 pre-COVID-19 boarding strategies.…”