New Airport Terminal Design - Essay Example

Presently, in big airports, the automated people mover (APM) system is used. However, prior to this development, some six airport terminal configurations were used namely; pier satellite design, pier finger design, remote satellite design, transporter design, semicircular (curvilinear) design, and linear design. Having analyzed the concepts mentioned above, the most appropriate and efficient design was a hybrid of linear and pier satellite design configurations. By description, the linear design concept involves a configuration with one building hosting both the ticketing and waiting area, especially for small aircraft airports.

The pier satellite terminal includes the same design as linear only that it involves more concourses connected to this main building thus creating several satellite structures. Considerations of best practices in modern airports influenced the hybrid selection decision.The need for short walking distances, for example, for passengers was assured by incorporating linear design to counter the excessive walking distances created by the rotunda-like pier satellite concept.A linear design concept guarantees a precise orientation where aircrafts park nose-in with respect to the terminal building.

However, the orientation occasioned by the rotunda-like layout in the pier satellite design configuration is not a straight forward one.The simple construction of the main linear terminal building and the piers influenced the selection of the hybrid design configuration. The layout is simple and enables passengers to park their vehicles even right in front of the terminals before they enter through for boarding the aircraft.Adequate curb length is made possible by the pier satellite system since it is dependent on dwell time called so to mean the time has taken to remove passengers and their baggage.

Thanks to the piers for decentralizing the clearing area and the no hub volume type of airport under consideration. In this case, there was enough area for terminal curb for through vehicles, baggage, and the passengers’ pickup.Short close-out timesSmall baggage system costs using a decentralized system helps achieve pier satellite concept uses both the main building terminal and the docks to remove luggage. It accomplishes this through security and weight checks rather than if it were only one central area. (Blow)Low probability for growth in the near future was a primary consideration in choosing the linear pier satellite configuration of the airport terminal.

It ensures that the land utilized to construct the airport terminal would not require an increment in the near future on its acreage. As such, the hybrid design selected was after calculations of the available size of land without plans for the acquisition of any further land in the near future.Low-cost design of the linear pier satellite design was a favorable input. Since only the piers required any definite and careful placements so as to avail enough space for parking aircraft without taking up more space than needed, the cost of the same was a minimum.

Mostly domestic passengers were taken into consideration especially by the linear design aspect.The small number of transfer passengers is a major characteristic that influenced the selection of the hybrid model. Both linear and pier satellite design configurations are meant to cater more for domestic arrivals rather than transfer passengers connecting flights.To achieve the best design concept, it is important to consider the choice of a hybrid configuration forThe new airport terminal. It is important since no single design concept satisfies all the ideal conditions needed.

(De Neufville)