{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T21:54:46Z","timestamp":1785448486037,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":17,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,10,11]],"date-time":"2017-10-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1507680000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["71471012"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["71471012"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["71621001"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["71621001"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["71390332"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["71390332"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Symmetry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Optimally organizing passengers boarding\/deboarding an airplane offers a potential way to reduce the airplane turn time. The main contribution of our work is that we evaluate seven boarding strategies and two structured deboarding strategies by using a surrogate experimental test. Instead of boarding a real or mocked airplane, we carried out the experiment by organizing 40 participants to board a school bus with ten rows of four seats, symmetrically distributed on a single, central aisle. Experimental results confirm that the optimized strategies, i.e., Steffen and Steffen-lug, are superior to the traditional ones, i.e., Back-to-front, Window-to-aisle, and Random in time-saving and stability. However, the two structured deboarding strategies failed to reduce the deboarding time, and this result strongly suggests the prerequisites of applying such strategies only when, on average, passengers have a large amount of luggage. Besides, we further carried out a questionnaire survey of participants\u2019 preferences on seat layout and discussed how those preferences influence the boarding time.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/sym9100222","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,10,11]],"date-time":"2017-10-11T12:17:47Z","timestamp":1507724267000},"page":"222","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":17,"title":["Evaluation of Airplane Boarding\/Deboarding Strategies: A Surrogate Experimental Test"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"9","author":[{"given":"Shengjie","family":"Qiang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Transportation and Logistics, East China Jiaotong University, Nanchang 330013, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Bin","family":"Jia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Qingxia","family":"Huang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,10,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"339","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ejor.2014.12.008","article-title":"Airplane boarding","volume":"244","author":"Jaehn","year":"2015","journal-title":"Eur. J. Oper. Res."},{"key":"ref_2","first-page":"197","article-title":"A study of the airline boarding problem","volume":"14","author":"Nyquist","year":"2008","journal-title":"J. Air Transp. Mag. Manag."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"294","DOI":"10.1016\/S0377-2217(01)00294-6","article-title":"Reducing passenger boarding time in airplanes: A simulation based approach","volume":"142","author":"Beuselinck","year":"2002","journal-title":"Eur. J. Oper. Res."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"44","DOI":"10.1177\/0361198105191500106","article-title":"Robustness of efficient passenger boarding strategies for airplanes","volume":"1915","author":"Ferrari","year":"2005","journal-title":"Transp. Res. Rec. J. Transp. Res. Board"},{"key":"ref_5","first-page":"42","article-title":"Reducing airplane boarding time by accounting for passengers\u2019 individual properties: A simulation based on cellular automaton","volume":"40","author":"Qiang","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Air Transp. Mag. Manag."},{"key":"ref_6","first-page":"52","article-title":"Symmetrical design of strategy-pairs for enplaning and deplaning an airplane","volume":"54","author":"Qiang","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. Air Transp. Mag. 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Manag."},{"key":"ref_14","first-page":"101","article-title":"Structured deplaning via simulation and optimization","volume":"36","author":"Wald","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Air Transp. Mag. Manag."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1114","DOI":"10.1119\/1.2982636","article-title":"A statistical mechanics model for free-for-all airplane passenger boarding","volume":"76","author":"Steffen","year":"2008","journal-title":"Am. J. Phys."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Qiang, S.J., Jia, B., Huang, Q.X., and Gao, Z.Y. (2016). Mechanism behind phase transitions in airplane boarding process. Int. J. Mod. Phys. C, 27.","DOI":"10.1142\/S0129183116500613"},{"key":"ref_17","first-page":"140","article-title":"A fast airplane boarding strategy using online seat assignment based on passenger classification","volume":"53","author":"Notomista","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. Air Transp. Mag. Manag."}],"container-title":["Symmetry"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-8994\/9\/10\/222\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T18:47:00Z","timestamp":1760208420000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-8994\/9\/10\/222"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2017,10,11]]},"references-count":17,"journal-issue":{"issue":"10","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,10]]}},"alternative-id":["sym9100222"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/sym9100222","relation":{},"ISSN":["2073-8994"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2073-8994","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2017,10,11]]}}}