How to align railway network and service location planning?

The railway network of the Netherlands is one of the most intensively used railway networks in the world. This result in a complex planning problem, on the railroad but more importantly on the railway hub, i.e. stations with nearby service locations.  NS first designs a timetable, and then assigns rolling stock to all the trips in the timetable. This results in a problem instance for the service locations, where parking and service activities have to be planned in such a way that all trains leave the location on time and in the right composition  This problem might be infeasible, due to too much trains or too much shunting movements etc. This project focusses on how to find the minimal adjustment to the network plan (trips and material) such that parking on the shunting yards can be done.

Researchers

Rens de Heer

Academic supervisors

Dr. Han Hoogeveen, Dr. ir. Marjan van den Akker, Roel van den Broek MSc.

Grant funding agency and (co-)funding non-academic partners

NS