Capacity Management on Long-Distance Passenger Trains of Indian Railways

Raja Gopalakrishnan () and Narayan Rangaraj ()
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Raja Gopalakrishnan: Western Railway, Churchgate, Mumbai 400020, India
Narayan Rangaraj: Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India

Interfaces, 2010, vol. 40, issue 4, 291-302

Abstract: In this paper, we discuss a model to allocate train capacity among multiple travel segments on an Indian Railways train route with several stops. We use a linear programming model and data preprocessing and postprocessing to determine the optimal capacity allocation on multiple travel legs. The model uses a simple, effective capacity management tool. For historical and social reasons, Indian Railways splits its train capacity based on user and type of travel. Determining the optimal split of such capacity is nontrivial. We deal with the specific issue of the spatial split of seats in an end-to-end travel segment within a given travel class. This addresses the needs of end-to-end and en route travelers. When we applied our model to 17 Indian Railways trains, we achieved increases of 2.6 to 29.3 percent in revenue, 6.7 to 30.8 percent in load factors, and 8.4 to 29 percent in passengers carried.

Keywords: rail transportation; linear programming; applications; capacity management; revenue management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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