Abstract :
Abstract — Current practice in the operational-level
management of railway traffic networks is mostly based on
predefined rules and on the ability of traffic controllers and
train dispatchers to detect and avoid conflicting situations.
However, train operations are affected by many varying
factors, such as driver behavior, passenger volumes, weather
conditions, etc. These factors are results in delays. Delays in
railway traffic networks include initial, primary, consecutive,
knock- on delays. These delays can be partly absorbed by a
stable and robust timetable. Timetable stability is rapidly
gaining attention due to the increasingly saturated European
railway infrastructure, where a slightly delayed train may
cause a domino effect of consecutive delays over the entire
network. The essential structure of railway traffic operating
under a periodic railway timetable can be modeled as a
linear system in max-plus algebra. Max-plus-linear systems
can be characterized as discrete event systems in which only
synchronization and no concurrency or choice occurs. In this
paper we present a controlled railway system model using the
switching max-plus-linear system. If the model is affine in the
controls, the optimization problem can be recast as a mixedinteger
linear programming problem.
