PROBLEMS OF FREIGHT CAR FLOWS DISTRIBUTION ON RAILWAY NETWORKS

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Purpose. The purpose of the article is a critical analysis of the existing methods of freight car flows distribution on the railway network and the determination of the directions of these methods adaptation to the operating conditions of the Ukrainian railway transport. Methodology. The research was carried out on the basis of the processing of literary sources in the scientometric databases Scopus and Google Scholar. Results. The distribution of car flows on the railway network is one of the stages of developing a plan for the trains formation. The methods of solving this problem, which are currently used in the practical work of railway transport, were developed during the time of the planned state economy. They are based on the solution of a single-criterion optimization problem aimed at finding such a distribution of car flows on the network that minimizes the cost of transportation for the railway. Reforming the railway transport market with the aim of introducing competition requires the complication of methods of solving the problem of distribution of car flows to take into account the conflicting goals of independent participants in the transport process. The conducted studies showed that the main method of modeling the structure of the railway transport network and the volumes of car flows in it is the theory of graphs; determination of the carrying capacity of elements of the railway network is carried out by the methods of the theory of railway operation, simulation modeling and correlation analysis; determination of the optimal distribution of bandwidth is carried out by comparing competing options, as well as by linear and non-linear programming methods, adaptive control methods using neural networks; the behavior of participants in the transportation process during the allocation of bandwidth is investigated by game theory methods. It has been established that in modern conditions, the task of determining the criterion of equal access to congested sections on the branched railway network and the task of distributing car flows on the network in conditions of fluctuating car flows during transportation by regular trains and trains to order require additional research. Originality. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the critical analysis and generalization of modern methods used to solve the problem of distribution freight car flows distribution on railway networks. Practical value. The practical significance of the results lies in determining the inconsistency of the methods that are practically used on the railways of Ukraine for the distribution of car flows, with the modern conditions of operation of railway transport. Scientific methods have been established that allow to improve approaches to solving the problem of rational distribution of car flows, taking into account the interests of various participants in the transportation process.