Aircraft Fleet Scheduling With Atomic Change Sets
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing transportation scheduling systems struggle to efficiently manage dynamic vehicle schedules due to complexities arising from various passenger types, fleets, and scheduling requests, leading to inefficiencies and suboptimal utilization of resources.
Innovation Solution
A cascading reservation system iteratively schedules aircraft based on demand and updates schedules using schedule change sets, allowing for efficient allocation of various fleets and customer types, reducing costs and improving availability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If dynamic scheduling adjustments are made to accommodate passenger requests, then service flexibility and customer satisfaction improve, but schedule complexity and error rates increase
Solution Approach 1:
The scheduling system divides the complex scheduling problem into discrete atomic change sets, where each change set represents a specific scheduling adjustment (e.g., aircraft assignment, crew assignment, route modification). This segmentation allows the system to manage complexity by handling individual changes separately rather than attempting to optimize the entire schedule simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements dynamic scheduling by allowing schedules to be modified through atomic change sets that can be applied, rejected, or adjusted based on real-time conditions. The schedule is not fixed but can evolve dynamically while maintaining consistency through the atomic change mechanism.
2Reliability
If atomic change sets are used to manage schedule modifications, then error propagation is reduced and schedule consistency improves, but the number of discrete changes increases
Solution Approach 1:
The schedule modification process is segmented into atomic change sets, where each change set is a self-contained unit that modifies specific aspects of the schedule (aircraft, crew, routes) without affecting other unrelated elements. This ensures that errors remain localized and do not propagate across the entire schedule.
Solution Approach 2:
The system evaluates each atomic change set for feasibility and consistency before applying it to the schedule. This feedback mechanism ensures that only valid changes are implemented, maintaining schedule reliability while managing the number of discrete changes through intelligent filtering and validation.
3Productivity
If multiple fleets and customer types are aggregated, then resource utilization efficiency improves, but system complexity and management difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The scheduling system is designed to handle multiple fleets and customer types through a universal scheduling framework that accommodates diverse requirements. Atomic change sets serve as a common interface for managing different fleet types and customer priorities, allowing the system to maintain simplicity while achieving high resource utilization across heterogeneous resources.
4Loss of information
If schedule changes are propagated to all network nodes, then information completeness improves, but communication overhead and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
Schedule information is propagated in segmented atomic change sets rather than as complete schedule revisions. Each node receives only the specific atomic changes relevant to its operations, reducing communication overhead while maintaining information completeness for local decision-making.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments herein describe how a computer can receive scheduling requests for various user types. The computer can iteratively allocate the aircraft to determine a schedule for each aircraft based on the requests and determining an availability for crews associated with the aircraft. The computer can iteratively execute the algorithm for each updated scheduling request. The computer can generate schedule change sets for a graphical user interface based on an allocation of the aircraft and crews from the algorithm. Generating the schedule change sets can include determining a viability of the plurality of change sets; determining a cost associated with each of the viable schedule change sets according to a predetermined cost function; and selecting a change set based on the cost thereof. The computer can automatically generate and transmit the change set to schedule propagation nodes.