Routes Planning Models for Railway Transport Systems in Relation to Passengers’ Demand

Abstract

Nowadays, transport systems efficiency plays a key role for communities’ liveability and economy, being in addition an important factor in the economic integration of countries. The purpose of the article is to develop multi-stage models of tourist activities for optimizing the development of operating companies. For the implementation of models, the authors evolved the relevant system of organizational-functional support for the development of railway tourism. The research will enable us to take into consideration risks when planning tourist routes by railway, determine the order of construction or start of routes, and assess their profitability. This will provide to earn the expected incomes of all interested parties in tourist activities for the specified period. The authors created economic-mathematical models of the discrete optimal planning of the railway tourism operations. This takes into account conditions of risks and cooperation, and allows to determine which sets of effective routes are the most profitable ones. The results of the realization of the developed models include the task of the succession of the tourist route introduction according to the present and future infrastructure, availability of the rolling stock, etc. In this, consideration is given to obtaining maximum profit from tourism businesses for every participant during an established period.

Railway tourism in providing the sustainable and smart population mobility

“…Conditional and fixed costs, which depend on the structure of the tourist train, include costs related to the equipment, maintenance and service of passenger tourist cars: wages for equipment, maintenance, service and repair of passenger cars ($24,480,000); payroll ($5,385.6); materials for equipment, maintenance, maintenance and repair of passenger cars ($38,000); other expenses ($50,000) [33].…”

Correlations between transportation and the Covid-19 pandemic

“…Companies will be able to play a participatory role in this, as it has already been seen how pandemics also cause economic damage to the transport industry, and this can be seen as a reciprocal opportunity: of funding research on these issues for the academic world, and of adaptation to a new market with less losses and greater revenues for companies. Speaking of transportation and pandemics, the field is so vast, new, and multidisciplinary that related research topics will not be lacking: from models and algorithms [26, 27, 28, 29, 30] of interconnection between transport and pandemic spread, to related human behavior and the effects on the choice of transport modes [31,32,33,34,35] to the adoption of green technologies to reduce the pollution and therefore the weakening of human immune defenses, to the application of Internet of Things (IoT) and other technological devices to transportation and so on [36,37,38,39]. This fits very well with the idea of sustainability and the achievement of a better world for us and above all for future generations [40,41,42,43].…”

The role of cold ironing in maritime transport emissions

“…To date, renewable energies can perhaps find easier application on shore, creating sustainable autonomous power plants and electricity grids to power up vessels through Cold Ironing, but also any other vehicle or machinery inside the port [27, 28, 29, 30]. It must be noted that shore-side and on-board systems must present the same characteristics for electricity, since standards may vary worldwide [31,32]. Cold Ironing technology is currently relatively expensive; thus, some effort will be required also in terms of regulations and funding, speaking i.e., about well calibrated policies with reward and penalty systems, like for example assigning credits to virtuous stakeholders or setting high charges for those who don't comply; Information Technology today is able to help with the calibration of this multi-parameter models [33, 34, 35], but it must be remembered that not all ports and stakeholders are currently financially able to upgrade their fleet and infrastructure to chase the environmental transition for a greener future [36,37,38].…”