The maintenance scheduling and location choice problem for railway rolling stock

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftForschungsartikelBeigetragenBegutachtung

Beitragende

  • Jordi Zomer - , Technische Universität Delft (Autor:in)
  • Nikola Bešinović - , Technische Universität Delft (Autor:in)
  • Mathijs M.de Weerdt - , Technische Universität Delft (Autor:in)
  • Rob M.P. Goverde - , Technische Universität Delft (Autor:in)

Abstract

The increasing train traffic over railway networks stretches the demand for capacity of railway yards and rolling stock maintenance locations, which increasingly limits performance and further growth. Therefore, the scheduling of rolling stock maintenance and the choice regarding optimal locations to perform maintenance is increasingly complicated. This research introduces a Maintenance Scheduling and Location Choice Problem (MSLCP). It simultaneously determines maintenance locations and maintenance schedules of rolling stock, while considering the available capacity of maintenance locations. Solving the MSLCP using one large Mixed Integer Programming appears not to perform well enough. Therefore, to solve the MSLCP, an optimization framework based on Logic-Based Benders’ Decomposition (LBBD) is proposed by combining two models, the Maintenance Location Choice Problem (MLCP) and the Activity Planning Problem (APP), to assess the capacity of an MLCP solution. Within the LBBD, four variants of cut generation procedures are introduced to improve the computational performance: a naive procedure, two heuristic procedures and the so-called min-cut procedure that aims to exploit the specific characteristics of the problem at hand. The framework is demonstrated on realistic scenarios from the Dutch railways. It is shown that the best choice for the cut generation procedure depends on the objective: when aiming to find a good but not necessarily optimal solution, the min-cut procedure performs best, whereas when aiming for the optimal solution, one of the heuristic procedures is the preferred option. The techniques used in the current research are new to the current field and offer interesting next research opportunities.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Seiten (von - bis)474-491
Seitenumfang18
FachzeitschriftEuropean journal of operational research
Jahrgang332
Ausgabenummer2
Frühes Online-Datum6 Dez. 2025
PublikationsstatusElektronische Veröffentlichung vor Drucklegung - 6 Dez. 2025
Peer-Review-StatusJa
Extern publiziertJa

Externe IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-4111-2255/work/204619157

Schlagworte

Schlagwörter

  • Location choice, Maintenance scheduling, Optimization, Railway rolling stock, Transportation