The Dutch railway network is a dense network with 7000 kilometers of railway tracks spread over only 42 000 square kilometers [1, 2]. Additionally, the railways are responsible for 1.4 million passengers every working day [1]. These factors make both the infrastructure and timeta
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The Dutch railway network is a dense network with 7000 kilometers of railway tracks spread over only 42 000 square kilometers [1, 2]. Additionally, the railways are responsible for 1.4 million passengers every working day [1]. These factors make both the infrastructure and timetable of the Dutch railway network extremely intricate. On top of that, the amount of train trips is expected to grow with 40 % by 2040 [3] and with that the complexity of managing the railway network will increase even more. In the case of conflict in the timetable, action must be taken to resolve this conflict in order for the train operations to continue. In current Dutch practice this task resides with the train dispatchers. However it can be difficult for the dispatcher to oversee the situation when multiple trains get involved and taken actions will have consequences on yet another selection of trains. This increasingly complex task has resulted in a grown interest in so-called Traffic Management Systems (TMS), which are an intelligent systems that use a conflict resolution algorithm to find a solution to a conflict. A TMS can be used to support the train dispatcher...
