Time-window based Truck Appointment System with Adaptive Slot management and Real-Time Truck Information: A case study for the loading operations in a Chemical Plant

Long truck queues and congestion around terminals is a common sight, however they come with many negative externalities for all the stakeholders involved. Truck Appointment System (TAS) is the most commonly used system to face these problems, but it still has some drawbacks and limitations. Consequently, in this research an extension of the...

An Approximate Conflict Detection and Resolution Model for Moving-Block Signalling by Enhancing RECIFE-MILP

Conflict detection and resolution models are being developed to support railway traffic management in taking optimised rescheduling decisions in case of disturbances. Existing models mostly concern fixed-block signalling systems, in which minimum train separation distances are determined based on a preset number of blocks representing worst-case...

Real-time railway traffic management under moving-block signalling: A literature review and research agenda

Railway traffic management is responsible for the detection and resolution of conflicts in case of disturbed operations. To minimise delay propagation, rescheduling decisions are taken by human dispatchers, possibly supported by mathematical models. Existing conflict detection and resolution (CDR) models mostly refer to conventional fixed...

Microscopic simulation of decentralized dispatching strategies in railways

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of decentralized strategies for dispatching rolling stock and train drivers in a railway system. Such strategies give operators a robust alternative in case centralized control fails due to an abundance of infrastructure or rolling stock disruptions or information system malfunctions. We test the...

Analysing the impacts of peak demand and traffic rescheduling in high frequency metro networks

With the increasing demand for public transport systems worldwide and also a lot of these systems running at their maximum capacity, there is a strong need for finding ways for these systems to operate in a more efficient way. In recent transportation research there is an increasing attention for operational conditions and the impact of...

At-stop control measures in public transport: Literature review and research agenda

In this literature review, we systematically review studies on public transit control with a specific focus on at-stop measures. In our synthesis of the relevant literature, we consider three perspectives: (1) the mathematical models of the proposed methodologies; (2) their complexity; (3) their applicability in real-time operations and their...

A next step in disruption management: combining operations research and complexity science

Railway systems occasionally get into a state of being out-of-control, meaning that barely any train is running, even though the required resources (infrastructure, rolling stock and crew) are available. Because of the large number of affected resources and the absence of detailed, timely and accurate information, currently existing...

Towards passenger-oriented simulation-based rescheduling in metro lines

Unreliability is a major source of discontent for passengers using public transport. Real-time rescheduling is one of the tools available to deal with it. Although passenger movements have an impact on the development of a disturbance in public transport operations, this effect is rarely accounted for in rescheduling models for metro networks....

A Next Step in Disruption Management: Combining Operations Research and Complexity Science

Railway systems occasionally get into a state of out-of-control, meaning that there is barely any train is running, even though the required resources (infrastructure, rolling stock and crew) are available. These situations can either be caused by large disruptions or unexpected propagation and accumulation of delays. Because of the large number...

Railway disruption management challenges and possible solution directions

This paper investigates the challenges of railway traffic controllers in dealing with big disruptions and the kind of support tools that could help to improve their task in terms of performance, lead time and workload. The disruption handling process can be partitioned into three phases resembling a bathtub. For each phase the essential...

A Microscopic Model for Optimal Train Short-Turnings during Complete Blockages

Currently railway traffic controllers use predefined solutions (contingency plans) to deal with a disruption. These plans are manually designed by expert traffic controllers and are specific to a certain location and timetable. With a slight change in the timetable or infrastructure, these plans might not be feasible and have to be updated....