Coordinating maintenance windows and train traffic: a case study

Abstract

This paper concerns a case study for optimal planning and coordination of railway maintenance windows and train traffic. The purpose is to validate a previously presented optimization model on a demanding real-life problem instance and to obtain results that apply in similar planning situations. A mixed integer linear programming model is used for a 913 km long, single-track railway line through the northern part of Sweden, with traffic consisting of 82 trains per day, most of which are freight trains. Cyclic 1-day schedules are produced, which show that 2 h long maintenance windows can be scheduled with small adjustments of the train traffic. The sensitivity for cost changes is studied, which shows that the train costs must increase by more than 30% in order to change the structure of the window solutions. Resource efficient window schedules are obtained by assigning maintenance teams to all windows while respecting crew work and rest time restrictions. A comparison with manually constructed plans from the Swedish Transport Administration indicates that larger window volumes can be scheduled at a lower cost and with solution structures which are deemed reasonable and useful as guidance for constructing the real window patterns. Finally, we estimate that using an integrated planning approach (where maintenance and trains are jointly planned) instead of a sequential approach (where a train timetable has precedence over the maintenance windows), will give maintenance cost savings of 11-17%, without incurring any large cost increases for the train traffic. The paper also presents a method for achieving cyclic schedules without any period-deciding variables, and discusses the consequences of the aggregated capacity usage model that has been adopted.

Robustness and disturbances in public transport

“…A comprehensive treatment of the topic, mostly focusing on freight rail applications, can be found in Lidén et al. ( 2018 ) and Lidén ( 2020 ). They focus on the coordination of railway network maintenance and train traffic, especially under the assumption of investigating a cyclic integrated train service and railway maintenance planning problem with resource considerations.…”

“…( 2018 ) Tram, case study in Vienna (Austria) Strategic scheduling of preventive maintenance tasks; MIP model and large neighborhood search; possible connection to bus bridging Lidén et al. ( 2018 ), Lidén ( 2020 ) Rail, case study in Sweden Coordination of railway network maintenance and train traffic, cyclic integrated train service and railway maintenance planning problem with resource considerations; MIP model; the settings are transferable from freight rail to passenger rail Louwerse and Huisman ( 2014 ) Rail, instances from Netherlands Railways Integer programming; applicable in general, not only for maintenance Su et al. ( 2017 ) Rail Scenario-based chance-constrained MPC van der Hurk et al.…”

Simultaneous scheduling of replacement and repair of common components in operating systems

“…In other words, PM may not be scheduled while a system is operating. In the case of railway systems; e.g., Lidén (2020), each train is assigned time slots when it should operate (i.e., transport goods or passengers); hence, PM may be scheduled only in-between these time slots. In the case of offshore wind turbine maintenance (e.g., Shaee et al, 2013), the operational demand is fulfilled by wind energy production, while maintenance work can be done only during time periods of not too harsh weather conditions.…”

Assessing the Effects of Closure-Free Periods on Railway Intervention Costs and Service

“…Even though routine maintenance requires relatively short, regular, and periodical interval pattern, their patterns still require more time than the periods considered in train scheduling models. Therefore, specific models for a joint train traffic and intervals schedule have been developed in research (Lidén 2020;Lidén and Joborn 2017;Lidén et al 2018;Van Aken et al 2017). They are able to model longer, cyclic periods, such as multiple days to an entire week.…”

“…In recent decades, an increasing amount of research has focused on the optimization of intervention programs (Burkhalter and Adey 2018;Caetano and Teixeira 2015;Pargar et al 2017) and the integration of routine maintenance windows in the train schedule (D'Ariano et al 2019;Lidén 2020;Lidén andJoborn 2016, 2017;Luan et al 2017;Van Zante-De Fokkert et al 2007). The former focus on the optimal selection and scheduling of interventions.…”