A computer simulation of Tampa International Airport's landside terminal and shuttles

Abstract

TOPSIM, a terminal simulation package developed at M.I.T., was used to simulate Tampa's landside terminal and to study its capacity-congestion characteristics as traffic levels increase. Tampa has no congestion problems at present, processing 5 million passengers per year, but may in the future. TOPSIM indicates that congestion arises at the ticket counters and on the critical segments of the elevator cycle when annual traffic volumes reach 14+ million passengers. TOPSIM's modular design has sufficient flexibility to handle a variety of airport layouts without major reprogramming effort. The package was previously used to simulate passenger flows for hypothetical "Metroport" terminals (handling passenger volumes similar to LaGuardia) and for Eastern Airlines' terminal at Logan. It produces performance statistics on passenger movements (such as total distance walked and time spent standing in queues), and on facilities (such as utilization of ticket booths). TOPSIM's application to Tampa demonstrates its ability to handle other than "shuttle" oriented terminals. In fact, it can theoretically simulate any terminal regardless of trip type or mode, since the passenger processing routine is similar for most terminals.