Network Structures of Cargo Airlines

184 Pages·2012·12.61 MB·English

by  Aaron Scholz

Aaron B. Scholz
Network Structures of Cargo Airlines –
An Empirical and a Modelling Approach

Network Structures of Cargo Airlines –
An Empirical and a Modelling Approach
by
Aaron B. Scholz
Dissertation, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 16. November 2011
Referenten: Prof. Dr. Werner Rothengatter
Prof. Dr. Frank Schultmann
Prof. Dr. Eddy Van de Voorde
Die Bilder des Buchumschlags wurden von Prof. Karl Rege
(2008, AirTraffic Worldwide, ZHAW) unter der Creative Commons-Lizenz
(CC-BY-NC-SA) zur Verfügung gestellt.
Impressum
Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)
KIT Scientific Publishing
Straße am Forum 2
D-76131 Karlsruhe
www.ksp.kit.edu
KIT – Universität des Landes Baden-Württemberg und nationales
Forschungszentrum in der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft
Diese Veröffentlichung ist im Internet unter folgender Creative Commons-Lizenz
publiziert: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/de/
KIT Scientific Publishing 2012
Print on Demand
ISBN 978-3-86644-796-7
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Air cargo transport is developing at high growth rates. Although the share of air
cargo of total freight transport is low, measured in tonnes lifted or tonne-kilometres
carried, the share of values transported is high, which underlines its importance for
the functioning of supply chains for high valued goods in the economy. The
development of air cargo networks was historically dominated by the air passenger
hubs, because the major part of air cargo was transported in the bellies of passenger
airplanes. With the extension of dedicated air cargo lines and the increasing
environmental problems of big passenger hubs the development of efficient future
air cargo networks is an upcoming challenge. Basically the network configurations
of air cargo carriers can be developed towards pure cargo carriers, combined
carriers or integrated service providers (integrators).
The modelling of airline network design includes four steps as there are schedule
design, fleet assignment, maintenance routing and crew scheduling. Aaron Scholz
focuses on the first two problems, and in particular on the hub location problem,
because this will be an increasing challenge in particular for the integrators and
cargo fleet operators. This results in a large-scale/non-linear optimization problem,
which only can be solved by heuristic methods.
Aaron develops the model AirTrafficSim, which consists of graph theoretical
components to model transport movements in space and optimal selection tools to
reduce the combinatorial complexity of fixed charge problems. The main algorithm
applied is based on the meta-heuristic “Simulated Annealing” which is a spin-off
concept of thermodynamics. The innovative feature of this approach is its ability to
jump from local search to other promising branches of the search tree. Aaron gives
some impressive examples for the efficiency of this algorithm compared to widely
applied methods like for instance the Greedy algorithm.
But the reader will not only find in this book a remarkable progress with the
development of modelling tools for treating complex optimisation problems. Aaron
has invested the same effort into the empirical analysis of the air cargo sector. In
particular he has compiled available data on the demand and supply side of one
important player in the market such that he is able to calibrate his model in a way
that it reproduces the present structure of the air cargo branch of this company with
remarkable accuracy. Starting from this baseline he constructs a scenario for the
optimal adjustment of the air cargo branch of this company until the year 2029.
The results of this empirical exercise lead to the discussion to which extent the
deviations of the model results from the actual behaviour of the firm is caused by
the modeller’s ignorance or the firms missing ability to adjust to market challenges.
The reader will not fail to notice that there are significant indicators for the latter
interpretation. Insofar the book of Aaron Scholz provides both: A sophisticated
analytical platform to design optimal network structures for the air cargo industry
and an accurately constructed empirical demonstrator for the practical use of a
theoretically well-founded instrument.

Werner Rothengatter