Abstract
The availability of railway networks is important for society and the economy. To keep the infrastructure in good condition, regular maintenance is needed. Regular maintenance is achieved by devising maintenance schedules that assign safe work zones to crews executing preventive maintenance activities. This study aims to optimize the maintenance schedules for both train operators and maintenance contractors, by considering (a) hindrance for parked passenger trains and planned freight trains, and (b) the workload for track workers. Further, maintenance operations are distinguished into different engineering fields (switches, straight tracks, and overhead wiring) since this influences the amount of hindrance. The method presented for designing maintenance schedules is a novel mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model that considers these aspects. In our Dutch case study, we assess our new scheduling model and show that large improvements can be made in terms of mean workload for work crews and total hindrance for train operators. We also assess the computational costs when using exact (branch-and-bound) or metaheuristic solution methods for solving networks with up to 25 work zones.
Highlights
Railway networks are of great importance for both society and the economy and it is expected that they will continue growing significantly over the decades (Bešinović et al, 2019)
Our research shows the benefits of distinguishing maintenance in the different engineering fields in railway maintenance, since this is strongly related to the hindrance caused by maintenance
This study proposed a novel mixed-integer linear program for maintenance scheduling that considers the trade-off between train traffic and maintenance management
Summary
Railway networks are of great importance for both society and the economy and it is expected that they will continue growing significantly over the decades (Bešinović et al, 2019). When the capacity of railway infrastructure is heavily used, maintenance activities need to be performed in short and fragmented time slots or during nights (Odolinski and Boysen, 2019) This makes it difficult to devise efficient maintenance schedules. Dutch railway manager ProRail gives a maintenance schedule to its maintenance contractors in which every railway section is planned train-free for maintenance at regular moments every week (or every two weeks) These periods are, not always used by contractors; traffic undergoes unnecessary disturbances. This study adjusts an existing scheduling model to improve maintenance schedules by providing a better balance between train traffic and maintenance management during nightly maintenance This is achieved by considering the workload of maintenance crews and the hindrance for train operators caused by maintenance operations performed during train-free periods with respect to passenger trains.
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