Journal: EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics

Abbreviation

Publisher

Elsevier

Journal Volumes

ISSN

2192-4376
2192-4384

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2020 - 20263
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Publications 1 - 3 of 3
  • The impact of wind on energy-efficient train control
    Item type: Journal Article
    Trivella, Alessio; Wang, Pengling; Corman, Francesco (2020)
    EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics
    An energy-efficient train trajectory corresponds to the speed profile of a train between two stations that minimizes energy consumption while respecting the scheduled arrival time and operational constraints such as speed limits. Determining this trajectory is a well-known problem in the operations research and transport literature, but has so far been studied without accounting for stochastic variables like weather conditions or train load that in reality vary in each journey. These variables have an impact on the train resistance, which in turn affects the energy consumption. In this paper, we focus on wind variability and propose a train resistance equation that accounts for the impact of wind speed and direction explicitly on the train motion. Based on this equation, we compute the energy-efficient speed profile that exploits the knowledge of wind available before train departure, i.e., wind measurements and forecasts. Specifically, we: (i) construct a distance-speed network that relies on a new non-linear discretization of speed values and embeds the physical train motion relations updated with the wind data, and (ii) compute the energy-efficient trajectory by combining a line-search framework with a dynamic programming shortest path algorithm. Extensive numerical experiments reveal that our “wind-aware” train trajectories present different shape and reduce energy consumption compared to traditional speed profiles computed regardless of any wind information.
  • A review of principles and methods to decompose large-scale railway scheduling problems
    Item type: Journal Article
    Leutwiler, Florin; Corman, Francesco (2023)
    EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics
    Providing punctual, reliable and performant services to customers is one main goal of railway network operators. The railway scheduling problem is to determine, ahead of time (timetabling), a plan describing the timing of the operations in a railway network, or updating such plan during operations (rescheduling). By optimization and automation, it is possible to operate more trains on the network, closer to the infrastructure capacity. Especially when the scale and complexity of the scheduling problem is increasing, for large-scale networks and multiple interconnected problems, this is of great value for network operators. When planning or adjusting railway operations becomes increasingly complex, modern scheduling algorithms can bring significant performance and economic benefits. In this survey we review approaches in the state of the art for the problems of railway scheduling. We show how the many different approaches of decomposition proposed in the literature of railway scheduling can be categorized into two general principles. We study different solution methods and identify a list of open topics for dealing with large-scale problems for future research.
  • Network design, line planning and timetabling in public transport systems with uncertain parameters
    Item type: Journal Article
    Klasovitá, Viera; Corman, Francesco (2026)
    EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics
    Understanding and addressing uncertainty is crucial for effective public transport design. This literature review examines key aspects of modelling and optimisation on network design, line planning and timetabling under uncertain conditions. We restrict the analysis to the case where some parameters in those mathematical problems have an uncertain value, that is, either characterised as a probability distribution, scenarios, or updated over multiple stages. The literature reveals the use of a wide range of concepts and models, the most common ones being robustness, multi-period planning, and stochastic programming. The research varies significantly in the selection of parameters to be unknown and/or uncertain and, in turn, those that are predetermined and deterministic. A critical analysis leads us to the following insights. The value of including uncertainty in the optimisation is often not quantified, and real-life applications that can estimate its benefits are scarce. The analysis reveals variations in terminology across different papers, with multiple overlapping and/or different concepts benefiting from similar mathematical approaches, highlighting the complexities researchers face. Our analysis indicates that only few articles use data to derive realistic or accurate scenarios and distributions to be used in stochastic optimisation approaches. Despite these complexities, ongoing advancements in modelling and optimisation techniques offer a promising path towards more effective and resilient public transport systems. These improvements ultimately enhance service quality and increase passenger satisfaction.
Publications 1 - 3 of 3