Shunting of Passenger Train Units in a Railway Station

In this paper we introduce the problem of shunting passenger train units in a railway station. Shunting occurs whenever train units are temporarily not necessary to operate a given timetable. We discuss several aspects of this problem and focus on two subproblems. We propose mathematical models for these subproblems together with a solution method based on column generation. Furthermore, a new efficient and speedy solution technique for pricing problems in column generation algorithms is introduced. Finally, we present computational results based on real life instances from Netherlands Railways.