Abstract: Considering the process time, metro time and walking time of transit passengers, the transit tension parameter is proposed to evaluate the impact of boarding gate allocation on passengers transiting. A multi -objective and multi-constraint optimization model for gate allocation is established, which takes the transit tension of all transit passengers, the failure rate of flight allocation, and number of occupied boarding gates as the optimization objectives. The constraints including gate type and flight conflict are also taken into consideration. The bio - geography-based algorithm is adopted to solve the problem. The results show that 54 more flights are successfully allocated in the optimized model, increasing by 12% compared with the 'first -come -first -serve' scheme. The successful allocation rate of wide-body aircrafts is 100%. The proportion of passengers whose transit tension is lower than 1.0 takes 70%, and the number of successful transit passengers has increased by 30%. The overall transit tension has decreased by 25% . The current research can provide strategic support for boarding gate allocation with multiple terminals, alleviate the transit tension of passengers, and improve the efficiency of airport resource utilization.

Key words: boarding gate allocation, transit passenger, failure rate of flight allocation, number of occupied gates, transit tension degree, biogeography-based algorithm.