Developing an “Intelligent” DSS for the multicriteria evaluation of railway timetables: problems and issues

ABSTRACT Given a Railway network, a Rolling stock and a Timetable (RRT), it is a very difficult task to ex ante evaluate the loss of quality of the service offered to travelers in case of incidents. We have designed a System for Robustness Evaluation (SRE) to measure the effects of incidents. This system starts from the RRT then the decisions of the dispatchers, in case of incident, are simulated by an expert system. After the incidents are resolved, the resulting perturbed timetable is analysed along five criteria. This system is now completed. It appears as an integrated multicriteria decision support system which constitutes a very useful tool, both to appreciate the interest of investments intended to improve the network or the rolling stocks, and to guide the choice of a timetable. Moreover, starting from this case and according to our experience, we discuss some problems and issues met during the development of multicriteria DSSs.