Volume 25 Issue 6
Dec.  2025
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JIANG Yu, LIN Cao, LONG Ying, XUE Qing-wen. Optimization model of trunk-regional-general multilevel air transportation network considering hub balance[J]. Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, 2025, 25(6): 186-199. doi: 10.19818/j.cnki.1671-1637.2025.06.016
Citation: JIANG Yu, LIN Cao, LONG Ying, XUE Qing-wen. Optimization model of trunk-regional-general multilevel air transportation network considering hub balance[J]. Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, 2025, 25(6): 186-199. doi: 10.19818/j.cnki.1671-1637.2025.06.016
shu

Optimization model of trunk-regional-general multilevel air transportation network considering hub balance

doi: 10.19818/j.cnki.1671-1637.2025.06.016
  • 1.

    College of Civil Aviation, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 211106, Jiangsu, China

  • 2.

    College of General Aviation and Flight, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Liyang 213300, Jiangsu, China

Funds:

National Natural Science Foundation of China 52372298

National Natural Science Foundation of China 52302517

Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province BK20230893

More Information
  • Corresponding author: XUE Qing-wen (1992-), female, associate professor, PhD, qingwenx@nuaa.edu.cn
  • Received Date: 2025-05-13
  • Accepted Date: 2025-09-05
  • Rev Recd Date: 2025-06-29
  • Publish Date: 2025-12-28
    Abstract
  • To promote the construction and efficient operation of trunk-regional-general multilevel air transportation network, this paper studied the optimization method for trunk-regional-general multilevel air transportation network by considering the multilevel characteristics of the hub-and-spoke airline network and connection rules between general aviation and the trunk-regional transportation network. With the objective functions of minimizing network transportation costs and hub construction costs, minimizing the longest transportation time, and minimizing the unbalanced utilization degree of hubs, a multi-objective optimization model for capacitated r-allocation non-strict hub-and-spoke network was built. By combining characteristics of the multi-objective optimization model, the VNS-NSGA-Ⅲ was designed for solution, and the variable neighborhood search (VNS) was introduced to design six different neighborhoods to avoid falling into the local optimum. Some airports in North China were selected for small-scale and large-scale trunk-regional-general network modeling and solution to verify the effectiveness of the VNS-NSGA-Ⅲ, with parameter sensitivity analysis performed. Analysis results indicate that in identical parameter conditions, the VNS-NSGA-Ⅲ achieves the smallest inverted generational distance of 0.043 78 compared to other algorithms, demonstrating that its obtained Pareto solutions feature superior diversity and convergence. Sensitivity analysis results show that when the number of normal hubs increases from 2 to 8, the cost, time, and unbalanced utilization degree of hubs decrease by 21.94%, 23.20%, and 50.00% respectively. When the number of central hubs increases from 2 to 5, the three objectives decrease by 13.86%, 13.08%, and 33.52% respectively. Regarding different allocation strategies, the multiple-allocation model outperforms the single-allocation model in terms of both cost and time objectives. However, while enhancing route flexibility, the multiple-allocation model is prone to increase traffic load on critical hubs, causing an imbalance in hub utilization. Hub location results, allocation strategies and non-hub connectivity significantly influence network flow distribution and objective function values.

     

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