Simulation-based optimization of decision-making process in railway nodes

Abstract

Smooth operation of railway stations and yards is vital for the efficient functioning of the whole railway system. Being complex systems, their operation is extremely sensitive to various influences, which makes their management, especially at the operational level, very difficult. Efficient tools to aid the decision-making process of dispatchers of such stations are therefore needed. With an emphasis on increasing the effectiveness of decision support tools, we propose a simulation-based optimization algorithm. This algorithm extracts a dataset from a simulation model and then reduces it to a partial dataset to be able to use specific exact optimization method in operational management. The partial dataset is limited by certain time horizon. The applicability of the proposed algorithm has been verified on two distinct tasks, namely, personnel assignment and service task assignment in a maintenance depot, confirming the usability of the proposed approach.

Keywords

• simulation
• optimization
• decision support
• railway