Centralized versus distributed systems to reschedule trains in two dispatching areas


Date

2010-08

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

no

Citations

Altmetric

Data

Abstract

Railway dispatchers are in charge of rescheduling trains during operations in order to limit propagation of disturbances occurring in real-time. To help the dispatchers in such task, an advanced decision support system, ROMA (Railway traffic Optimization by Means of Alternative graphs), has been recently implemented to optimize railway traffic within a single dispatching area. This paper presents a novel distributed optimization system to control trains running in a Dutch railway network that is divided into two complex dispatching areas with dense traffic, each one controlled by a single dispatcher with the support of a local ROMA. A coordination level is introduced in order to manage the interaction among the two local ROMAs. An extensive computational assessment of the centralized and distributed systems is performed by using simple and advanced train scheduling algorithms, including dispatching rules adopted during operations. The effectiveness of the distributed system is shown in terms of computation time and delay minimization for practical statistical entrance delay distributions and in presence of an increasing number of blocked platforms in the main station area.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Volume

2 (3)

Pages / Article No.

219 - 247

Publisher

Nature

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

Railway rescheduling; Traffic optimization; Schedule coordination

Organisational unit

09611 - Corman, Francesco / Corman, Francesco check_circle
02226 - NSL - Netzwerk Stadt und Landschaft / NSL - Network City and Landscape
02655 - Netzwerk Stadt u. Landschaft ARCH u BAUG / Network City and Landscape ARCH and BAUG

Notes

Funding

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