Joint optimization of flight and train timetables for air and high-speed railway integration services with maximum accessibility

Abstract

One important benefit of air and high-speed railway (AH) integration services is increasing the number of destinations within passengers’ reach, which means intermodal services can facilitate passengers from cities that are linked to nearby airports by railway, to travel to or from more locations. However, certain origin-destination (OD) pairs are not accessible when the flight and train timetables are not well coordinated, which will lead to a reduction in the overall benefit. Given the original timetables, a joint optimization model for flight and train timetables is proposed, to improve the intermodal service accessibility in an AH transfer hub with a railway link. The objectives are to maximize the weighted sum of accessible OD pairs and minimize the time shifts compared with the original timetables. A real-world case study in China is performed to demonstrate the applicability of the model. The results illustrate that the model can effectively improve the accessibility.