Minimizing inconsistencies in airport common-use checking counter assignments with a variable number of counters

The paper develops a model that minimizes total inconsistencies in common-use counter assignments with a variable number of counters. The model is formulated as a zero–one integer program. To efficiently solve the large problems that occur in practice, we develop a heuristic method. To test how well the proposed model and the solution algorithm could be applied to the real world, we perform numerical tests based on a Taiwan airport's operations. The obtained results are good, which shows that the model and the algorithm could be useful.