Tactical Locomotive Fleet Sizing for Freight Train Operations

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2008

Subject Area

infrastructure - vehicle, infrastructure - fleet management, organisation - management, mode - rail

Keywords

Vehicle fleets, Simulation, Railroad transportation, Rail transportation, Motor vehicle fleets, Locomotive operations, Freight trains, Fleets (Vehicles), Fleet management, Computer simulation

Abstract

Determination of fleet size of locomotives and of a policy to deadhead them are tactical issues that influence the level of customer service in a rail network. This paper considers a railroad system in which a priori freight train schedule does not exist. A simulation-based approach is proposed for tactical locomotive fleet sizing. The study shows that the throughput increases with the number of locomotives up to a certain level; after that the congestion caused by the movements of large number of locomotives in the capacity-constrained rail network offsets the potential benefit of a large fleet.

Comments

Transportation Research Part E Home Page: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13665545

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