Evaluating the Performance of Railway Dynamic Traffic Management

This paper investigates the effectiveness of global strategies for real-time railway traffic optimization. In past years, this research area experienced an increasing interest because of the expected growth of traffic and the limited possibilities of enhancing the infrastructure, which increase the needs for efficient use of resources and the pressure on traffic controllers. The paper carries on this study using an advanced computerized dispatching system, Railway Traffic Optimization by Means of Alternative (ROMA) graphs. This system is able to optimize the future evolution of the railway traffic while taking into account accurately the actual train positions and dynamics, as well as railway signaling and operating rules and conditions. Specifically, the paper compares local versus global optimization strategies for train reordering and rerouting, and estimate the potential of the new concept of dynamic traffic management. An extensive computational study is carried out, based on a dispatching area of the Dutch railway network. The paper studies practical size instances and different types of disturbances, including train delays and blocked tracks. Our results show the high potential of ROMA dispatching system as a support tool to improve punctuality.

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