SCHEDULING TRAINS ON A RAILWAY NETWORK USING A DISCRETE EVENT MODEL OF RAILWAY TRAFFIC

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2004

Subject Area

operations - scheduling, operations - traffic, infrastructure - track, ridership - commuting, mode - rail

Keywords

Travel time, Train traffic, Schedules and scheduling, Railroad traffic, Networks, Journey time, Double track, Discrete time systems, Discrete systems

Abstract

This paper develops a local feedback-based travel advance strategy for computing railway network schedules. The strategy uses a discrete event model of train advances along lines of the railway. This approach can quickly handle perturbations in the schedule and is shown to perform well on three time-performance criteria while maintaining the local nature of the strategy. If the local strategy leads to a deadlock, a capacity check algorithm is applied that prevents deadlock, but requires additional nonlocal information. Extensions to the strategy are developed for networks with double-track sections and with variable train characteristics and priorities. The approach also is shown to be computationally efficient.

Comments

Transportation Research Part B Home Page: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01912615

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