ENGINE ROUTING AND SCHEDULING AT INDUSTRIAL IN-PLANT RAILROADS

This paper describes a mathematical model and related algorithms for addressing in-plant railroad engine decision support for scheduling and routing. This problem involves a heterogeneous fleet of switching engines to serve a set of transportation requests that are time-window and capacity constrained. Exploiting the structure of admissible schedules of this particular railroad situation, a mixed integer and a binary set partitioning formulation are developed. The linear programming relaxation of the set partition model is solved by column generation, focusing on the pricing problem stated in the form of a constrained shortest path problem. A new exact label correcting algorithm is developed that prunes the search space in a unique way. Integer solutions are obtained by a price-and-branch heuristic. Computational tests demonstrate the feasibility and practicality of the proposed approach.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/1767714
• Corporate Authors:

  Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)

  901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400
  Linthicum, MD  United States  21090-2909
• Authors:
  • Lubbecke, M E
  • Zimmermann, U T
• Publication Date: 2003-5

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 183-197
• Serial:
  • Transportation Science
  • Volume: 37
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
  • ISSN: 0041-1655
  • Serial URL: http://transci.journal.informs.org/

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Algorithms; Decision support systems; Industrial plants; Industrial railroads; Linear programming; Mathematical models; Mixed integer programming; Routing; Scheduling; Shortest path algorithms; Switching locomotives; Time windows; Vehicle fleets
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Railroads; Terminals and Facilities;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00943570
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 21 2003 12:00AM