Xiaojia Guo and Bert De Reyck, along with Yael Grushka-Cockayne from Harvard Business School, are finalists in the 2019 INFORMS Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) Practice-Based Research Competition.​

INFORMS M&SOM is the premier journal for the operations management research community, publishing a wide range of research that focuses on the production and operations management of goods and services including technology management, productivity and quality management, product development, cross-functional coordination, and practice-based research.

Their paper, ‘Forecasting Airport Transfer Passenger Flow Using Real-Time Data and Machine Learning’, has been selected as one of the award’s finalists, and they will present the paper during the final in Singapore on 1 July.

In the paper, which will be published in the journal Manufacturing and Services Operations Management, Xiaojia, Bert and Yael describe a new system developed in collaboration with Heathrow airport to forecast passenger flows through the airport. The aim is to produce accurate real-time forecasts of passengers arriving at security and immigration areas, to ensure sufficient resourcing in order to prevent queues and delays, thereby improving the passenger experience. The system also forecasts the likelihood that transfer passengers will make their outbound flight, enabling the airport and the airlines to anticipate and prevent delays.

This study was the first to apply machine learning for predicting real-time distributional forecasts of journeys in an airport, using passenger level data. It was part of a collaborative project commissioned by Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation.