Title of the talk: An Topology-Independent Accelerated Time Simulation
                   of Passengers' Flux in Airport Terminals

Authors:           Eugenio Roanes-Lozano (1), Eugenio Roanes-Macias (1),
                   Luis M. Laita (2)

Affiliation:       (1) Dept. Algebra, Universidad Complutense de Madrid,
                       Spain
                   (2) Dept. Artificial Intelligence, Universidad
                       Politecnica de Madrid, Spain

Abstract:

The authors were commissioned to develop this work by the airport authority of
one of the main Spanish airports.  It should be able to simulate in advance the
different possible designs of the new terminal, now in project, with a
``accelerated time simulation''.  This package, currently under development,
will consider departures, arrivals and luggage managing.

For instance, regarding departures, it considers the input flux, given by
``arrival curves''.  Passengers are assigned a ``check-in time'', according to
the characteristics of the passengers (class) and of the flight:
  - airline
  - company that takes care of the check-in
  - kind of flight (regular/charter)
  - size of plane (A,B,C,D,E)
  - type of destination (domestic, Schengen-country, others).
They are also distributed in the different desks (to check-in) according to the
previous data.  Then they have to pass through security controls and (possibly)
customs controls (each with variable time assigning) before reaching the gates
(at different distances and therefore times).

As a resume, it is a program that manages ``weighted'' queues using lists.  The
situation in the model is updated minute by minute.  Unlike other general
commercial scheduling packages, it emphasizes the detailed data of each
passenger, instead of the presentation of the results.

The program can show:
  - Detailed numerical data about any queue in the terminal at any minute
  - Representations in curves, animations... of the evolution of any queue
  - Maximum, media... of waiting time at any queue and of length of any queue
  - ...
Therefore it enables both to test different designs of the topology of the
terminal and to manage problems like check-in desk assigning.

The program, to be developed in a very tight schedule is being implemented in
Maple.