A Decision Support System For Routing TrainsThrough Railway Stations

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of routing trains through railway stations. This problem is to be solved within the Decision Support System DONS: Designer of Network Schedules. This system is developed to support the strategic planning process related to the required future capacity of the Dutch railway infrastructure. The latter capacity will be assessed with the help of DONS by generating a number of plausible timetables, and by checking whether these timetables are feasible, given certain scenarios for the future railway infrastructure. In this paper we give a description of the routing problem to be solved and of the relevant context. Then we formulate the problem as an integer linear programming model. The first objective is to maximize the number of trains that can be routed through a railway station, the second objective is to minimize the number of shunting movements and the third objective is to assign the trains to their most preferred platforms and routes. We also describe a solution procedure based on preprocessing, the addition of valid inequalities, the application of heuristics, and a branch & cut approach. This solution procedure is used to solve real-life instances of the routing problem involving the Dutch railway stations Zwolle and Utrecht CS.