Simultaneous locomotive and car assignment at VIA Rail Canada

Jean-François Cordeau, Guy Desaulniers, Norbert Lingaya, François Soumis and Jacques Desrosiers

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2001, vol. 35, issue 8, 767-787

Abstract: In this paper, we present a sophisticated model and a heuristic solution approach based on mathematical optimization for the assignment of locomotives and cars to passenger trains. Given a periodic schedule and a fleet composed of several types of locomotives and cars, our approach determines a set of equipment cycles that cover all scheduled trains while satisfying a number of operational constraints. We first present a basic formulation that translates maintenance requirements and other fundamental difficulties of the problem. We then discuss several extensions, such as substitution possibilities and the minimization of switching operations, which are required in a real-life application. The resulting model is optimized through a branch-and-bound method in which the linear relaxations are solved by column generation. The model and solution strategy were tested on data from VIA Rail in Canada and a complete system based on this approach is now implemented at the company.

Date: 2001
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191-2615(00)00022-9
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transb:v:35:y:2001:i:8:p:767-787

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological is currently edited by Fred Mannering

More articles in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().