Research Needs for Airport Terminal Planning

This paper is a report on the desirable research directions for airport terminal systems. A consensus was reached that the problems of airport terminal planning, design, and operation have to be extensively rethought. The research needs for this area are now principally in the soft side of engineering. Specific areas of particular importance concern: the nature of the airport systems and the networks that connect them; the size and distribution of the demands placed on the system; the spatial configuration of airport terminals; means to reduce labor intensity of ground side operations; the development of standards for equipment and operating procedures; the use of pricing policies to influence loads on the system; and the issues of how alternative plans should be evaluated. It is emphasized that en effective research strategy will have to consider the institutional problems of implementation as thoroughly as the technical issues.