School of Computing Research Colloquia

Passenger train vehicle scheduling

Ray Kwan, Algorithms & Complexity Group, School of Computing

Abstract: UK passenger rail traffic is predicted to double in the next 15 to 20 years and therefore operational efficiency is all important to train operating companies. After a public train timetable has been designed, the vehicle schedule is to be planned and optimised, which in turn would be the basis for scheduling the crews. Self-propelled train units are the most common type of train vehicle used in UK and many other countries. The train unit scheduling optimisation problem is NP-hard with many real-life complex constraints at train stations. This talk will discuss current research and computational results based on an integer fixed charge multi-commodity flow approach.