Track Allocation Optimization in Railway Station: Mean-Variance Model and Case Study
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 139, Issue 5
Abstract
Allocating tracks with operation restrictions for trains in a conflict-free way is known as the basic scheduling problem, and it has attracted much attention, especially at the station bottlenecks. First, this paper presents a mean-variance optimization model for solving the track allocation problem that minimizes the occupation time costs in groups of turnouts at station bottlenecks. Then the simulated annealing algorithm is provided to solve this programming. In addition, a case of a China railway station focused on track allocation is performed that illustrates the application of the proposed model. Also, considering the quality of track allocation program, an evaluation function that tests the results in a balanced allocation is built to further strengthen the allocating results. Finally, to verify the efficiency of the simulated annealing algorithm, the effects of algorithm parameters on an optimizing function have been tested. It illustrates that the algorithm parameters have great effect on the global optimal results. The more cycles the program runs, the better optimization results will be obtained.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is partly supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2012CB725400), NSFC (71131001), FANEDD (201170), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2012JBM122), and the Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Rail Traffic Control and Safety (RCS2010ZT001, RCS2010ZZ001).
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 139 • Issue 5 • May 2013
Pages: 540 - 547
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 10, 2012
Accepted: Nov 30, 2012
Published online: Dec 3, 2012
Published in print: May 1, 2013
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