ATMOS 2018: Invited speaker
18th Workshop on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modeling, Optimization, and Systems
Dennis Huisman · Erasmus University Rotterdam
Railway Disruption Management: State-of-the-art in practice and new research directions
Disruptions are inevitable in railway operations. For instance, in the Netherlands, there are on average about 11 disruptions per day resulting in cancelled trains. A combination of disruptions can result in a so-called out-of-control situation, where there is hardly any train traffic and passenger information is either incorrect or missing at all. Unfortunately, these situations happened a few times in the Netherlands during the last decade.
In this talk, we will discuss 3 approaches to either prevent or deal with such out-of-control situations.
The first approach, currently used in practice, is to operate a reduced timetable. This decision is taken on the previous day. Algorithms are used in rescheduling the rolling stock and crew. We will discuss how these algorithms are used in practice.
A second approach is to reschedule the timetable, rolling stock and crew at the moment a disruption occurs. Algorithms have been developed and applied to reschedule the crew. These algorithms and the implementation of them in practice will be discussed.
Finally, we come up with a third approach, where we try to predict and prevent an out-of-control situation. For this approach, we present some initial ideas and new research directions.
Dennis Huisman is a part-time professor Public Transport Optimization at the Econometric Institute, Erasmus University Rotterdam. His current research focuses on Operations Research models and techniques that can support the planning and operations of a railway operator in relation to complex logistical issues. He combines his role at ESE with that of expertise manager logistic processes at Netherlands Railways.
Dennis Huisman was a member of Netherlands Railways team that won the Franz Edelman Award, also known as the Super Bowl of Operations Research, in 2008. He obtained his PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2004. His PhD thesis dealt with integrated and dynamic vehicle and crew scheduling.