A review on railway delay management

Abstract

Passengers traveling by train may need to change trains on their route. If the focal train of a passenger is late, the passenger might miss his connection and has to decide how to continue his trip. Delay management addresses the question whether the connecting train should wait (or not) for the delayed passengers. If the connecting train waits, delays would get transferred through the network. In literature, several works consider delays and their impact on railways and how to reschedule disturbed plans. We focus on works, aiming to minimize passenger inconvenience as it is done in delay management. In the last two decades, dozens of works considering the delay management problem have emerged, tackling the problem in different ways. In this paper, an overview on the existing literature is given, and a new classification is introduced. We provide a taxonomy scheme for railway problems at an operational level and show how the field of delay management fits to other parts of the planning process. Moreover, limitations of the delay management approaches are discussed and future research opportunities are suggested.