Railway capacity assessment, an algebraic approach

Abstract

This publication is a result of the research program "Seamless Multimodal Mobility", carried out within The Netherlands TRAIL Research School for Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics, and financed by the Delft University of Technology. The "Seamless Multimodal Mobility" research program will provide tools for the design and operation of attractive and efficient multimodal passenger transport services. The study presented by this report is part of project 3, "Dependable Scheduling". The main objective of this SMM-project is to develop models for the analysis and prediction of delay propagation in service networks. In this report we restriet ourselves to delay propagation in railway transport systems, which can however be seen as a typical example of a service network. The objective of this study is to assess the value of the maxplus algebra approach for capacity assessment of railway stations. Hence, this report can be seen as a follow up of [13], where Wakob's approach has been investigated for the same problem. This report should be understandable for both researchers and interested railway companies, represented in the Netherlands by the organizations Railned (capacity management), NS Infrastructuur (maintenance of railway infrastructure), NS Verkeersleiding (traffic control) and Holland Railconsult (railway consultancy). The author would like to thank Bernd Heidergott, Geert-Jan Olsder and Piet Bovy for our fruitful discussions and editorial suggestions.