A GRASP Heuristic for Scheduling De-icing trucks at Stockholm Arlanda Airport

It is a fact that the most delays in the Air Transportation System (ATS) today occur on the airport. One reason for this is the large number of actors operating at the airport and the scarcity of communication between them and other parts of the ATS. Airport Logistics is a concept developed to survey all the flows of vehicles, people, material and information, which can be found on and around the airport. The objective is to increase efficiency, where one part is to decrease the delays. As an initial step, the turn-around process is analysed and an optimization model for the planning of de-icing trucks is implemented. The model shows that large savings can be made both by reducing the travelling distances for the trucks and reducing the delays the de-icing process is causing the ATS. However, most important is the advantage of having a plan for how the de-icing trucks should be utilized, something that is missing today.