Optimizing Railway Operations

Problem description: We sketch a potential collaboration and a wide road map of future research in the area of railway optimization. Our experience in two different kinds of decision problems are the basis of developing a standard process chain of managi ng railway systems and a general mathematical technique to solve large scale railway problems on different levels. Furthermore, we are aiming at incorporating robustness considerations within the decision process of railway companies. Planning and operat ing railway transportation systems is extremely hard due to the combinatorial complexity of the underlying discrete optimization problems, the technical intricacies, and the immense size of the problem instances. Mathematical models and optimization techn iques can result in huge gains for both railway customers and operators, e.g., in terms of cost reductions or service quality improvements. In addition a major part of the input is not known exactly at the time when the problem has to be solved. Neglectin g uncertainty may compromise feasibility and optimality of produced solutions. Hence, we need to incorporate robustness considerations in the decision process to obtain implementable solutions. In this project, we want to address three major decision pr oblems arising in every railway system: 1. long-term freight train routing and line planning, 2. mid-term and short-term vehicle rotation planning, 3. real-time train dispatching. These problems are at different levels of the decision process of a railway system and typically are handled by separated companies. We want to start this cooperation to reach different ambitious scientific goal: Define a standardized and general railway planning process Develop a fine-to-coarse or micro-macro aggregation techn ique Develop and integrate reasonable robustness models Develop an integrated model for line planning and timetabling