This paper addresses the railway rolling stock circulation problem. Given the departure and arrival times as well as the expected numbers of passengers, we have to assign the rolling stock to the timetable services. We consider several objective criteria that are related to operational costs, service quality and reliability of the railway system. Our model is an extension of an existing rolling stock model for routing train units along a number of connected train lines. The extended model can also handle underway combining and splitting of trains. We illustrate our model by computational experiments based on instances of NS Reizigers, the main Dutch operator of passenger trains.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2005.03.032, hdl.handle.net/1765/14199
ERIM Top-Core Articles
European Journal of Operational Research
Erasmus Research Institute of Management

Fioole, P.-J., Kroon, L., Maróti, G., & Schrijver, L. (2006). A Rolling Stock Circulation Model for Combining and Splitting of Passenger Trains. European Journal of Operational Research, 174(2), 1281–1297. doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2005.03.032