WHAT does every air traveller want? Certainly reduced delays and faster baggage handling and, possibly - for the long term - less pollution. Now, a new computerised approach to airport operations is being developed that could do all that.

The research work aims to computerise and coordinate four key areas of airport operations: scheduling of airplanes taking off and landing, gate assignment and baggage handling. Principal investigator Professor Edmund Burke said that integrating all four would be "a huge step forward" for all concerned.

The result will be a prototype search engine capable of analysing the many billions of possible scheduling combinations, to provide the best advice to the controllers who decide where in the airport to send planes.

The project is funded by the UK's Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council and led by researchers at the University of Nottingham, central England.

"Today, these four aspects of airport operations are, in most cases, organised manually by highly skilled staff making decisions based on observations, reports and their experience," said a spokesperson. "Furthermore, each activity is run in isolation from the others and allows the potential for any difficulties in operations in one area to affect another. This can lead to delays snowballing.

"As well as enhancing the experience for passengers, crucially, the improvements in scheduling will reduce pollution by minimising the time that planes are on the ground with engines running. This could save thousands of litres of aviation fuel every year, a vital improvement given the growth in air travel predicted in the coming years."

A consortium of researchers from four universities are involved in the project, assisted by Manchester and Zurich airports that will provide crucial expertise from the user's point of view.

The project will see development of computational models for each of the four airport operations which, ultimately, will be run on regular PCs. Key to the research will be examining how to run them all together to streamline overall operations.

Leading investigator Professor Edmund Burke is the Dean of the Faculty of Science at Nottingham University. He said the limitations of the current systems are widely acknowledged, adding: "Many people in the industry recognise that automating just one of these aspects could improve the efficient running of airport operations, so integrating all four would be a huge step forward.

"We will be developing a computer system that will work its way through the many billions of permutations created daily in each of these operations, to provide a much higher level of computer-aided decision support than is currently available," added Professor Burke. "This will provide the best possible advice to runway controllers and other airport staff to inform their decisions regarding to where planes and baggage are moved."

Among the vital issues being examined is how long an airplane needs for preparation on the ground before take-off. This has to include enough time for the passenger safety briefing - a legal requirement - and for the engines to warm up.

If sent to the runway without allowing enough time for these activities, it will mean a delay at the runway before take-off. This may lead to unnecessary congestion on the runway, aircraft needlessly using fuel while waiting for take off, and, potentially, delays to other flights.

Professor Burke said that the involvement of Manchester and Zurich airports should provide invaluable assistance to the multi-disciplinary team of scientists and engineers.

The academic team in the consortium consists of representatives from Nottingham University, Salford University, Loughborough University and Liverpool University.

Research by the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2006 found that a one-per-cent increase in air transport leads to a five-per-cent increase in delays. With a 26-per-cent rise in air transport expected by 2013, compared with 2006, this project could help airports change the way they operate.

The four-year research project started in December 2009 and has received funding of 682,000 pounds from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It is the main UK government agency for funding in its title's fields, investing more than 850 million pounds a year in a broad range of subjects - from mathematics to materials science, and from information technology to structural engineering (www.epsrc.ac.uk/).