A real-time train routing and platforming problem in complex railway stations

Abstract

This paper studies the real-time trains routing and platforming problem (RT-TRPP) in railway stations that arises from the unreliable arrival times of freight trains, flexible shunting operations and dynamic station layout caused by equipment failure. The feasibility of station timetable is checked before preparing a route for a train or after updating the station layout. If the station timetable is infeasible, the reassignment of trains is triggered. After introducing a problem formulation for the RT-TRPP, we propose an Integer Linear Program (ILP) that strives to minimize the number of conflicting trains. In resulting timetable, directions, arrival and leaving time remain the same with networks timetable to prevent traffic disturbance of neighboring territories. If the resulting timetable is still infeasible, conflicting trains are pointed out with the cause analysis. The method is tested on real-world complex station which receives always the overload of trains’ activities. The optimal full-day solution of 249 trains is obtained within 2 seconds. The efficiency of this method meets the time-critical nature of RT-TRPP.