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Railway track allocation: models and methods

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Abstract

Efficiently coordinating the movement of trains on a railway network is a central part of the planning process for a railway company. This paper reviews models and methods that have been proposed in the literature to assist planners in finding train routes. Since the problem of routing trains on a railway network entails allocating the track capacity of the network (or part thereof) over time in a conflict-free manner, all studies that model railway track allocation in some capacity are considered relevant. We hence survey work on the train timetabling, train dispatching, train platforming, and train routing problems, group them by railway network type, and discuss track allocation from a strategic, tactical, and operational level.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2800, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Richard M. Lusby & Jesper Larsen

  2. Department of Engineering Science, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Matthias Ehrgott & David Ryan

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  1. Richard M. Lusby
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  2. Jesper Larsen
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  3. Matthias Ehrgott
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  4. David Ryan
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Correspondence to Richard M. Lusby.

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Lusby, R.M., Larsen, J., Ehrgott, M. et al. Railway track allocation: models and methods. OR Spectrum 33, 843–883 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00291-009-0189-0

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