Railway junction conflict resolution by local search method

Abstract

This study investigates the application of local search methods on the railway junction traffic conflict-resolution problem, with the objective of attaining a quick and reasonable solution. A procedure based on local search relies on finding a better solution than the current one by a search in the neighborhood of the current one. The structure of neighborhood is therefore very important to an efficient local search procedure. This paper describes the formulation of the structure of the solution, which is the right-of-way sequence assignment. Two new neighborhood definitions are then proposed and the performance of the corresponding local search procedures is evaluated by simulation. It is shown that they provide similar results, but they can be used to handle different traffic conditions and system requirements.