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Algorithmic Methods for Railway Optimization pp 3–40Cite as

The Modeling Power of the Periodic Event Scheduling Problem: Railway Timetables — and Beyond

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 4359))

Abstract

In the planning process of railway companies, we propose to integrate important decisions of network planning, line planning, and vehicle scheduling into the task of periodic timetabling. From such an integration, we expect to achieve an additional potential for optimization.

Models for periodic timetabling are commonly based on the Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP). We show that, for our purpose of this integration, the PESP has to be extended by only two features, namely a linear objective function and a symmetry requirement. These extensions of the PESP do not really impose new types of constraints. Indeed, practitioners have already required them even when only planning timetables autonomously without interaction with other planning steps. Even more important, we only suggest extensions that can be formulated by mixed integer linear programs.

Moreover, in a selfcontained presentation we summarize the traditional PESP modeling capabilities for railway timetabling. For the first time, also special practical requirements are considered that we proove not being expressible in terms of the PESP.

Supported by the DFG Research Center “Mathematics for key technologies” in Berlin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. TU Berlin, Institut für Mathematik, Straße des 17. Juni 136, D-10623 Berlin,  

    Christian Liebchen & Rolf H. Möhring

Authors
  1. Christian Liebchen
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  2. Rolf H. Möhring
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Editor information

Frank Geraets Leo Kroon Anita Schoebel Dorothea Wagner Christos D. Zaroliagis

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Liebchen, C., Möhring, R.H. (2007). The Modeling Power of the Periodic Event Scheduling Problem: Railway Timetables — and Beyond. In: Geraets, F., Kroon, L., Schoebel, A., Wagner, D., Zaroliagis, C.D. (eds) Algorithmic Methods for Railway Optimization. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4359. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74247-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74247-0_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-74245-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-74247-0

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