Abstract
The efficient use of railway rolling stock is an important objective pursued in a railway agency or company because of intensive capital investment in rolling stock. Daily rolling stock assignment assigns appropriate equipment to cover a given set of utilization paths in the utilization schedules while considering practical requirements, such as maintenance, depot capacity, and circulation rules. Experienced railway practitioners can generally produce a feasible assignment plan; however, this manual process is time consuming, and an optimal solution is not guaranteed. This research develops an exact optimization model to improve the efficiency in rolling stock usage with consideration of all necessary regulations and practical constraints. Compared to the manual process, a hybrid heuristic process is also developed to improve solution quality and efficiency. Empirical results demonstrate that the heuristic process can successfully increase the efficiency of rolling stock use by about 5% and significantly reduce the solution time from 3h to 11.2 s. Using this decision support tool can help railways with similar characteristics to improve the efficiency in rolling stock usage and productivity in rolling stock assignment process.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
