A Queueing Model for Tiered Inspection Lines in Airports

Abstract

This paper proposes a tiered inspection system for airport security, wherein passengers are divided into three classes based on historical security records. A two-dimensional Markov process and a Markov modulated Poisson process (MMPP) queue were used in the formu- lation of the security inspection system. Simulated annealing was then used to obtain near- optimum solution for the model. The efficacy of the proposed model was evaluated using the arrival data of passengers at Taoyuan International Airport and other two international airports. A comparison with two conventional queueing models with regard to the average waiting time demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed security inspection system in enhancing service efficiency and boosting the level of security.