A new study evaluating aircraft ground marshalling methods found that traditional wand-based guidance offered the best overall balance of safety, efficiency, cost and operational reliability among five approaches examined.

Published in the journal Discover Vehicles, the research compared wand-based marshalling, manual hand signals, GPS-equipped follow-me vehicles, infrared camera systems and automated docking guidance systems.

Researchers evaluated the methods against seven criteria, including operational efficiency, safety, implementation costs, compatibility with existing infrastructure, training requirements, environmental impact and reliability in adverse conditions.

Wand-based marshalling ranked first under the study's decision-making model, while automated docking guidance systems ranked last. Researchers attributed the advantages of wand-based guidance to its affordability, adaptability and established role in airport ground operations.

The findings suggest that conventional marshalling methods remain valuable as airports adopt increasingly sophisticated technologies to manage aircraft movements.

However, researchers cautioned that the rankings reflect the criteria and expert assessments used in the study rather than demonstrated performance across airport environments. They recommended additional research using operational data, including aircraft turnaround times, ground incidents and maintenance records, to validate the findings.