Simulation of free boarding process using a cellular automaton model for passenger dynamics

Budget airlines adopt free boarding strategy when conducting passengers to board the airplanes. In such a boarding strategy, passengers are not offered any preassigned seats, and they choose their favorite seats freely once they are inside the airplane. A simulation framework based on cellular automaton is developed to mimic the dynamics of passenger flow in the free boarding process. In the model, each seat in the cabin is assigned a positive value to characterize how desirable it appears to the overall passengers. A logit-based discrete choice principle is applied to formulate the seat choice behaviors of passengers. The influence of the sensitivity parameters on the mean boarding time is discussed to identify the different classes of behavior exhibited by the model. The numerical results illustrate that the new model can qualitatively reproduce some dynamic properties of the free boarding process. Besides, two grouped strategies in a manner of freestyle are proposed, and quantitative comparisons are made with those involve assigned seats.