Periodic Timetabling with Flexibility Based on a Mesoscopic Topology

Abstract

In the project smartrail 4.0 Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) aims for a higher degree in automatization of the railway value chain (e.g. line planning, timetabling and vehicle scheduling, etc.). In the context of an applied research project together with SBB, we have developed an extension of the Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP) model. On one hand the extension is based on using a finer resolution of the track infrastructure, the so-called mesoscopic topology. The mesoscopic topology allows creating timetables with train lines assigned to track paths. On the other hand, we use a known, flexible PESP formulation (FPESP), i.e. we calculate time intervals instead of time points for the arrival resp. departures times at operating points. Both extensions (mesoscopic topology and flexibility) should enhance feasibility of the timetables on the microscopic infrastructure. We will call our model therefore track-choice, flexible PESP model (TCFPESP).