Integrating stop planning, timetabling and rolling stock planning on high-speed railway lines: A multi-objective optimization approach

Abstract

Designing railway operational planning is a complex and challenging task to cope with fluctuating passenger demand and satisfy actual operational requirements. Focusing on high-speed railway (HSR) lines, this paper proposes an integrated modeling framework for phase-oriented railway operational planning. The framework simultaneously optimizes the stop planning, train timetable problem (TTP) and rolling stock planning (RSP). A multi-objective optimization model, with macro passenger demand, two train speed levels, and overtaking operations taken into account, is formulated to minimize the total train running distance, train dwell time, and rolling stock resources. The constraints involve the train operation zones, train operation process, passenger demand, rolling stock circulation conditions, and actual operational requirements. The proposed model is addressed using a framework based on the ε-constraint method, from which an approximate Pareto-optimal solution set is obtained. A case study on the Beijing-Shanghai HSR corridor demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach and reveals some trade-offs between the proposed objectives.