1. ¹Imperial College, London, UK
2. ²CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences, Clayton South MDC, Victoria, Australia
3. ³Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

Correspondence: J E Beasley, The Management School, Imperial College, London SW7 2AZ, UK. E-mail: j.beasley@imperial.ac.uk

Received January 2003; Accepted October 2003.

Abstract

In this paper we define a generic decision problem — the displacement problem. The displacement problem arises when we have to make a sequence of decisions and each new decision that must be made has an explicit link back to the previous decision that was made. This link is quantified by means of the displacement function. One situation where the displacement problem arises is that of dynamically scheduling aircraft landings at an airport. Here decisions about the landing times for aircraft (and the runways they land on) must be taken in a dynamic fashion as time passes and the operational environment changes. We illustrate the application of the displacement problem to the dynamic aircraft landing problem. Computational results are presented for a number of publicly available test problems involving up to 500 aircraft and five runways.