On Optimally Allocating Tracks in Complex Railway Stations

Abstract

Timetabling and capacity planning of railway transport faces ever-growing challenges. Due to the high number of different influences on capacity, timetable optimization in the railway network cannot be efficiently handled by manual effort. The software system TAKT is a state-of-the-art realization, which allows to compute automatically strictly synchronized and conflict-free timetables for very large railway networks. The complexity increases significantly in the consideration of single tracks and highly frequented main railway stations which may also have a extensive track layout. This work shows how the complexity of the timetables process can be reduced by ignoring selected minimum headway constraints. As a result, timetables with possible conflicts in those covered regions will be computed. Consequently, there is the need for efficient algorithms and its corresponding conjunction to solve the remaining conflicts by detecting alternative stopping positions and routes within a main railway station and the optimized selection.