A combined simulation-optimization approach for minimizing travel time and delays in railway timetables

Authors

Johan Högdahl
Markus Bohlin
Oskar Fröidh

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2019

Subject Area

mode - rail, operations - reliability, operations - scheduling

Keywords

Railroad, Robustness, Optimization, Simulation, Punctuality

Abstract

Minimal travel time and maximal reliability are two of the most important properties of a railway transportation service. This paper considers the problem of finding a timetable for a given set of departures that minimizes the weighted sum of scheduled travel time and expected delay, thereby capturing these two important socio-economic properties of a timetable. To accurately represent the complex secondary delays in operational railway traffic, an approach combining microscopic simulation and macroscopic timetable optimization is proposed. To predict the expected delay in the macroscopic timetable, a surrogate function is formulated, as well as a subproblem to calibrate the parameters in the model. In a set of computational experiments, the approach increased the socio-economic benefit by 2–5% and improved the punctuality by 8–25%.

Rights

Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.

Comments

Transportation Research Part B Home Page:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01912615

Recommended Citation

Högdahl, J., Bohlin, M., & Fröidh, O. (2019). A combined simulation-optimization approach for minimizing travel time and delays in railway timetables. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Vol. 126, pp. 192-212.