Development of a Novel Freight Railcar Load Planning and Monitoring System

Snežana Mladenović,Slavko Vesković,Života Đorđević,Stefan Zdravković,Slađana Janković,Nataša Đalić

doi:10.3390/sym11060756

Snežana Mladenović, Slavko Vesković + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11060756

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Journal: Symmetry	Publication Date: Jun 4, 2019
Citations: 7	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Belgrade, University of East Sarajevo

Abstract

Rail transport has unmistakable sustainable (environmental and economic) advantages in goods transportation on a massive scale. Goods loading constitutes an important segment of goods transportation by rail. Incorrect loading can be a serious threat to traffic safety as well as a generator of unforeseen expenses related to goods, railway infrastructure and vehicles. At the beginning, the paper identifies the presence of incorrect loading into freight railcars. The analysis of the available loading software has led to the conclusion that no software offers adequate support to the planning and monitoring of the loading of goods into a covered railcar using a forklift truck. For this reason, the main aim of the research is to formulate a mathematical model that includes real-world constraints, as well as the design and implementation of an original user-friendly load planning and monitoring software system. Experimental evaluations of the implemented software have been made based on single and multiple railcar pallet loading problems, considering the following three optimization criteria: maximization of wagon load weight, maximization of wagon volume utilization and maximization of weighted profit. By testing the optimization and visualization features of the software and analyzing the results, it has been concluded that it can offer full support to real load planning and monitoring problems.

Highlights

With the raising of environmental awareness, rail transport is becoming increasingly important, trying to establish itself as the sustainable transportation system of the future
The paper presented here can be considered as an extension of our previous research, where the focus was on the mathematical model, while software was developed at the first prototype level only to test the model and did not include an appropriate graphical user interface
The brief analysis made in this paper has shown that incorrect loading is the dominant reason why freight railcars are withdrawn from service in the Republic of Serbia

Summary

Introduction

With the raising of environmental awareness, rail transport is becoming increasingly important, trying to establish itself as the sustainable transportation system of the future. The global rail sector is making a great effort to keep its environmental advantage by improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. 28 European member states of the International Union of Railways (French: Union Internationale des Chemins de fer, UIC) have collectively assumed the obligation to lower their carbon dioxide emissions per passenger kilometer and gross ton-kilometer by. Rail transport is the most cost-effective system of public transportation of passengers in densely-populated regions and zones of big cities, as well as goods when it comes to long-haul transportation and intermodal transportation systems. Taking into account the evident advantages of rail transportation in terms of sustainability, the European Commission has Symmetry 2019, 11, 756; doi:10.3390/sym11060756 www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry

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