Applications of train routing selection methods for real-time railway traffic management

Abstract

The real-time railway traffic management problem (rtRTMP) aims to solve time-overlapping conflicting track requests due to traffic disturbances. The size of the problem and the time required to solve it are affected by the number of routing alternatives available to each train. The real-time train routing selection problem (rtTRSP) chooses a feasible routing subset for each train to use as input for the rtRTMP. Recently, a computational analysis has been performed via Ant Colony Optimization and the RECIFE-MILP solver. This paper generalizes such analysis by considering a different rtRTMP model, objective function and solution approach. We adopt the AGLIBRARY solver, which is based an alternative graph model of the problem and minimizes the maximum consecutive delay. The aim is to develop real-time disturbance response strategies and to quantify the advantages of the selection of a subset of routings when using different solvers. We analyze how changes in the rtRTMP model are reflected in the rtTRSP and which modifications are required. The computational analysis is performed on two French infrastructures: the line around the city of Rouen and the Lille terminal station area. The analysis shows that solving the rtTRSP helps both solvers significantly, even if they are based on different models, objectives and algorithms.