Joint train rescheduling and track closures planning: Model and solution algorithm

Abstract

Selected complex railway track maintenance problem, composed of train rescheduling and track closures planning, is considered. It is assumed that a set of obligatory and facultative planned track closures is given for a specified railway network with the operating railway traffic managed by a current timetable. A new timetable is derived including all obligatory closures as well as a sub-set of facultative closures to maximize a combined performance index evaluating not only a number of accepted facultative closures but also a traffic quality expressed by a similarity of current and new timetables. A proposed heuristic algorithm is based on the decomposition of the problem into several connected sub-problems solved by solvers together with greedy algorithms. The algorithm responsible for the generation of railway sub-networks on the basis of the railway network is described in detail. Other algorithms are characterized in a general way. An illustrative numerical experiment is also given.