Optimizing limited-stop services with vehicle assignment

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Optimizing limited-stop services with vehicle assignment

Chew, Joanne S.C. / Zhang, Lele / Gan, Heng S.

Highlights • Combines the limited-stop service design with vehicle allocation in a large-scale network. • Considers both passenger travel time and comfort as the objective. • Evaluates several proposed methods and guides service providers in choice to fit their priority. • Conducts a case study on the Melbourne train system showing a significant improvement in service.

Abstract This paper studies limited-stop operations for rail transit systems and presents an optimization model, which aims to minimize passengers’ travel times and on-board crowdedness. The model combines the design of service itinerary for each vehicle and the allocation of vehicles of various types among multiple lines. Three methods are proposed including a mixed-integer program and two column generation algorithms. Numerical results on generic scenarios show that the column generation algorithm can provide sub-optimal solutions and is computationally efficient. In a case study on Melbourne’s railway network, its solution significantly improves in the passenger travel time compared to the current practice.