A COMPUTER SIMULATION OF TAMPA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS LANDSIDE TERMINAL AND SHUTTLES

TOPSIM, a terminal simulation package developed at MIT, was used to simulate Tampa's landside terminal and to study its capacity -congestion characteristics as traffic levels increase. TOPSIM indicates that congestion arises at the ticket counters and on the critical segments of the elevator cycle when annual traffic volumes reach over 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, simular 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.

• Corporate Authors:

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Flight Transportation Laboratory
  Cambridge, MA  United States  02139
• Authors:
  • Blumer, T P
  • Simpson, R W
  • Wiley, J R
• Publication Date: 1976-4

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Airport capacity; Elevators; Freight terminals; Intermodal terminals; Landside capacity; Passengers; Simulation; Statistics; Ticketing; Traffic congestion; Traffic volume
• Candidate Terms: Airport congestion
• Identifier Terms: Tampa International Airport
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Data and Information Technology; Freight Transportation; Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Terminals and Facilities;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00155625
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Report/Paper Numbers: FTC Report 76-5
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 31 1977 12:00AM