Air transport liberalization has created an environment of fierce competition among air carriers regarding the destinations, in contrast to commercially unattractive remote areas, including many of the Greek islands. Acknowledging the high geopolitical and social importance of retaining the air connection of peripheral nodes with central hubs, European Commission issued the Public Service Obligation (PSO) Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008 which provides authorized air carriers with monopoly privileges and subsidies in order to maintain specific air routes falling under the PSO regime. 28 such routes are currently active in Greece, 26 of them serving island destinations. The operational schedules of the carriers serving the Greek air PSO network, are designed independently, based in three main criteria: fleet assignment, aircraft maintenance routing and crew scheduling. This fragmented situation doesn’t take provisions for the needs of the local communities often leading to overlapping services and long delays. Therefore, the need for redesigning the entire scheduling of the Greek islands PSO air network, creating an integrated synchromodal transport system is profound.

The aim of this project is the creation of an air-passengers flow optimization model, able to balance the demands and limitations of the main stakeholder groups (passengers, air carriers, airports, local communities, regulatory authorities). Fuzzy networks methodology, especially the Benders and the Magnanti-Wong algorithms is used to build the optimization model. The final deliverable of this project will be a decision making tool which will be to the benefit of all major stakeholders: passengers and local communities will enjoy better air services, air carriers will increase productivity by creating economies of scale and density and regulatory authorities will safeguard that the strategic aim of the PSO policy (that is, the increase in connectivity and cohesion of European peripheral areas) has been achieved.

Deliverables: A patent (OBI no. 1010524/10-8-2023: Hellenic Industrial Property Organisation) for an integrated decision-making tool (Innovative Air Network Optimization System/IANOS-DSS), which synthesizes the requirements and constraints of the core stakeholders (in remote and isolated communities served by Public Service Obligation/PSO routes via a cocreation method), in order to optimize and increase the coherence of the PSO route network, maximizing social & economic impacts and reducing the environmental footprint.

website: ianos.upatras.gr

Co‐financed by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH – CREATE - INNOVATE