Resolving instability in railway timetabling problems

A significant growth of the railway transportation demand is forecasted in the next decades which needs an increase of network capacity. Where possible, infrastructure upgrading can provide extra capacity; although in some cases, this is not enough to satisfy the entire transportation demand even if optimised timetabling is performed. We...

Solving large-scale train timetable adjustment problems under infrastructure maintenance possessions

During infrastructure maintenance possessions, commonly not all trains can operate, and the original timetable may have to be adjusted accordingly. To deliver the best service to passengers, operators have to coordinate adjustment measures dealing with multiple possessions at the network level. In this paper, we consider the Train Timetable...

Dynamic Passenger Assignment during Disruptions in Railway Systems

Passenger-oriented rescheduling problems receive increasing attention. However, the passenger assignment models used for evaluating the rescheduling solutions are usually simplified by many assumptions. To estimate passenger inconvenience more accurately, this paper establishes a dynamic passenger assignment model during disruptions, in which...

Toward operationally feasible railway timetables (PPT)

An online railway traffic prediction model

Prediction of train positions in time and space is required for traffic control and passenger information. However, in practice only the last measured train delays are known and dispatchers must predict the arrival times of trains without adequate computer support. This paper presents a real-time tool for continuous online prediction of train...

Rescheduling models for network-wide railway traffic management

In the last decades of railway operations research, microscopic models have been intensively studied to support traffic operators in managing their dispatching areas. However, those models result in long computation times for large and highly utilized networks. The problem of controlling country-wide traffic is still open since the coordination...

Railway Timetable Stability Analysis Using Stochastic Max-Plus Linear Systems

Stability and robustness of a railway timetable are essential properties for punctual and reliable operations. Timetable performance evaluation is therefore an important aspect in the timetable design process. In particular, the stability and recoverability properties of a timetable with respect to daily process time variations must be well...

Improving Punctuality and Transfer Reliability by Railway Timetable Optimization

The Dutch railway network is operated close to capacity with the current safety system. This leaves little space for control by process operators by which a delayed train can cause severe delay propagation. The NS currently invest a large amount in punctuality improvement of the railway operations. This paper shows how the effect of delays can...