TY - GEN A1 - Breugem, Thomas A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Schulz, Christof T1 - A Three-Phase Heuristic for Cyclic Crew Rostering with Fairness Requirements N2 - In this paper, we consider the Cyclic Crew Rostering Problem with Fairness Requirements (CCRP-FR). In this problem, attractive cyclic rosters have to be constructed for groups of employees, considering multiple, a priori determined, fairness levels. The attractiveness follows from the structure of the rosters (e.g., sufficient rest times and variation in work), whereas fairness is based on the work allocation among the different roster groups. We propose a three-phase heuristic for the CCRP-FR, which combines the strength of column generation techniques with a large-scale neighborhood search algorithm. The design of the heuristic assures that good solutions for all fairness levels are obtained quickly, and can still be further improved if additional running time is available. We evaluate the performance of the algorithm using real-world data from Netherlands Railways, and show that the heuristic finds close to optimal solutions for many of the considered instances. In particular, we show that the heuristic is able to quickly find major improvements upon the current sequential practice: For most instances, the heuristic is able to increase the attractiveness by at least 20% in just a few minutes. T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-43 KW - Crew Planning KW - Column Generation KW - Variable-Depth Neighborhood Search Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-74297 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Erol, Berkan A1 - Graffagnino, Thomas A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Swarat, Elmar T1 - Aggregation Methods for Railway Networks N2 - In this paper a bottom-up approach of automatic simplification of a railway network is presented. Starting from a very detailed, microscopic level, as it is used in railway simulation, the network is transformed by an algorithm to a less detailed level (macroscopic network), that is sufficient for long-term planning and optimization. In addition running and headway times are rounded to a pre-chosen time discretization by a special cumulative method, which we will present and analyse in this paper. After the transformation we fill the network with given train requests to compute an optimal slot allocation. Then the optimized schedule is re-transformed into the microscopic level and can be simulated without any conflicts occuring between the slots. The algorithm is used to transform the network of the very dense Simplon corridor between Swiss and Italy. With our aggregation it is possible for the first time to generate a profit maximal and conflict free timetable for the corridor across a day by a simultaneously optimization run. T3 - ZIB-Report - 10-23 KW - makroskopische Bahnmodellierung KW - Netzwerkaggregation KW - macroscopic railway modeling KW - network aggregation Y1 - 2010 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-11881 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210970611000047 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Erol, Berkan A1 - Graffagnino, Thomas A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Swarat, Elmar T1 - Optimizing the Simplon Railway Corridor N2 - This paper presents a case study on a railway timetable optimization for the very dense Simplon corridor, a major railway connection in the Alps between Switzerland and Italy. Starting from a detailed microscopic network as it is used in railway simulation, the data is transformed by an automatic procedure to a less detailed macroscopic network, that is sufficient for the purpose of capacity planning and amenable to state-of-the-art integer programming optimization methods. In this way, the macroscopic railway network is saturated with trains. Finally, the corresponding timetable is re-transformed to the microscopic level in such a way that it can be operated without any conflicts among the slots. Using this integer programming based micro-macro aggregation-disaggregation approach, it becomes for the first time possible to generate a profit maximal and conflict free timetable for the complete Simplon corridor over an entire day by a simultaneous optimization of all trains requests. This also allows to to undertake a sensitivity analysis of various problem parameters. T3 - ZIB-Report - 10-24 KW - Trassenallokation KW - Netzwerkaggregation KW - Fallstudie KW - Simplon Korridor KW - railway track allocation KW - network aggregation KW - case study KW - Simplon corridor Y1 - 2010 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-11892 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Erol, Berkan A1 - Graffagnino, Thomas A1 - Swarat, Elmar T1 - Micro–macro transformation of railway networks JF - Journal of Rail Transport Planning & Management N2 - In this paper a bottom-up approach of automatic simplification of a railway network is presented. Starting from a very detailed, microscopic level, as it is used in railway simulation, the network is transformed by an algorithm to a less detailed level (macroscopic network), that is sufficient for long-term planning and optimization. In addition running and headway times are rounded to a pre-chosen time discretization by a special cumulative method, which we will present and analyse in this paper. After the transformation we fill the network with given train requests to compute an optimal slot allocation. Then the optimized schedule is re-transformed into the microscopic level and can be simulated without any conflicts occuring between the slots. The algorithm is used to transform the network of the very dense Simplon corridor between Swiss and Italy. With our aggregation it is possible for the first time to generate a profit maximal and conflict free timetable for the corridor across a day by a simultaneously optimization run. Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrtpm.2011.09.001 VL - 1 IS - 1 SP - 38 EP - 48 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Erol, Berkan A1 - Graffagnino, Thomas A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Swarat, Elmar T1 - Optimizing the Simplon railway corridor JF - Annals of Operations Research Y1 - 2012 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10479-012-1260-9 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-012-1260-9 VL - 218 IS - 1 SP - 93 EP - 106 PB - Springer US ET - Annals of Operations Research ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Breugem, Thomas A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Schulz, Christof A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf T1 - A three-phase heuristic for the Fairness-Oriented Crew Rostering Problem JF - Computers & Operations Research N2 - The Fairness-Oriented Crew Rostering Problem (FCRP) considers the joint optimization of attractiveness and fairness in cyclic crew rostering. Like many problems in scheduling and logistics, the combinatorial complexity of cyclic rostering causes exact methods to fail for large-scale practical instances. In case of the FCRP, this is accentuated by the additionally imposed fairness requirements. Hence, heuristic methods are necessary. We present a three-phase heuristic for the FCRP combining column generation techniques with variable-depth neighborhood search. The heuristic exploits different mathematical formulations to find feasible solutions and to search for improvements. We apply our methodology to practical instances from Netherlands Railways (NS), the main passenger railway operator in the Netherlands Our results show the three-phase heuristic finds good solutions for most instances and outperforms a state-of-the-art commercial solver. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2023.106186 VL - 154 SP - 106186 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Optimization of Handouts for Rolling Stock Rotations Visualization N2 - A railway operator creates (rolling stock) rotations in order to have a precise master plan for the operation of a timetable by railway vehicles. A rotation is considered as a cycle that multiply traverses a set of operational days while covering trips of the timetable. As it is well known, the proper creation of rolling stock rotations by, e.g., optimization algorithms is challenging and still a topical research subject. Nevertheless, we study a completely different but strongly related question in this paper, i.e.: How to visualize a rotation? For this purpose, we introduce a basic handout concept, which directly leads to the visualization, i.e., handout of a rotation. In our industrial application at DB Fernverkehr AG, the handout is exactly as important as the rotation itself. Moreover, it turns out that also other European railway operators use exactly the same methodology (but not terminology). Since a rotation can have many handouts of different quality, we show how to compute optimal ones through an integer program (IP) by standard software. In addition, a construction as well as an improvement heuristic are presented. Our computational results show that the heuristics are a very reliable standalone approach to quickly find near-optimal and even optimal handouts. The efficiency of the heuristics is shown via a computational comparison to the IP approach. T3 - ZIB-Report - ZR-16-73 Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-61430 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Harrod, Steven A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - A Direct Comparison of Physical Block Occupancy Versus Timed Block Occupancy in Train Timetabling Formulations JF - Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review N2 - Two fundamental mathematical formulations for railway timetabling are compared on a common set of sample problems, representing both multiple track high density services in Europe and single track bidirectional operations in North America. One formulation, ACP, enforces against conflicts by constraining time intervals between trains, while the other formulation, RCHF, monitors physical occupation of controlled track segments. The results demonstrate that both ACP and RCHF return comparable solutions in the aggregate, with some significant differences in select instances, and a pattern of significant differences in performance and constraint enforcement overall. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2013.04.003 VL - 54 SP - 50 EP - 66 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Sahin, Guvenc A1 - Ahmadi, Amin A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Multi-Period Line Planning with Resource Transfers N2 - Urban transportation systems are subject to a high level of variation and fluctuation in demand over the day. When this variation and fluctuation are observed in both time and space, it is crucial to develop line plans that are responsive to demand. A multi-period line planning approach that considers a changing demand during the planning horizon is proposed. If such systems are also subject to limitations of resources, a dynamic transfer of resources from one line to another throughout the planning horizon should also be considered. A mathematical modelling framework is developed to solve the line planning problem with transfer of resources during a finite length planning horizon of multiple periods. We analyze whether or not multi-period solutions outperform single period solutions in terms of feasibility and relevant costs. The importance of demand variation on multi-period solutions is investigated. We evaluate the impact of resource transfer constraints on the effectiveness of solutions. We also study the effect of line type designs and question the choice of period lengths along with the problem parameters that are significant for and sensitive to the optimality of solutions. T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-51 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-74662 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Re-optimizing ICE Rotations after a Tunnel Breakdown near Rastatt N2 - Planning rolling stock movements in industrial passenger railway applications isa long-term process based on timetables which are also often valid for long periods of time. For these timetables and rotation plans, i.e., plans of railway vehicle movements are constructed as templates for these periods. During operation the rotation plans are affected by all kinds of unplanned events. An unusal example for that is the collapse of a tunnel ceiling near Rastatt in southern Germany due to construction works related to the renewal of the central station in Stuttgart. As a result the main railway connection between Stuttgart and Frankfurt am Main, located on top of the tunnel, had to be closed from August 12th to October 2nd 2017. This had a major impact on the railway network in southern Germany. Hence, all rotation plans and train schedules for both passenger and cargo traffic had to be revised. In this paper we focus on a case study for this situation and compute new rotation plans via mixed integer programming for the ICE high speed fleet of DB Fernverkehr AG one of the largest passenger railway companies in Europe. In our approach we take care of some side constraints to ensure a smooth continuation of the rotation plans after the disruption has ended. T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-02 KW - case study KW - re-optimization KW - railway rolling stock optimization KW - mixed integer programming Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-73976 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Re-optimizing ICE Rotations after a Tunnel Breakdown near Rastatt T2 - Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis - RailNorrköping 2019 N2 - Planning rolling stock movements in industrial passenger railway applications isa long-term process based on timetables which are also often valid for long periods of time. For these timetables and rotation plans, i.e., plans of railway vehicle movements are constructed as templates for these periods. During operation the rotation plans are affected by all kinds of unplanned events. An unusal example for that is the collapse of a tunnel ceiling near Rastatt in southern Germany due to construction works related to the renewal of the central station in Stuttgart. As a result the main railway connection between Stuttgart and Frankfurt am Main, located on top of the tunnel, had to be closed from August 12th to October 2nd 2017. This had a major impact on the railway network in southern Germany. Hence, all rotation plans and train schedules for both passenger and cargo traffic had to be revised. In this paper we focus on a case study for this situation and compute new rotation plans via mixed integer programming for the ICE high speed fleet of DB Fernverkehr AG one of the largest passenger railway companies in Europe. In our approach we take care of some side constraints to ensure a smooth continuation of the rotation plans after the disruption has ended. Y1 - 2019 UR - http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/article.asp?issue=069&article=011&volume= SN - 978-91-7929-992-7 SN - 1650-3686 VL - Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings IS - 069 SP - 160 EP - 168 PB - Linköping University Electronic Press, Linköpings universitet CY - Linköping, Sweden ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Optimization of handouts for rolling stock rotations JF - Journal of Rail Transport Planning & Management N2 - A railway operator creates (rolling stock) rotations in order to have a precise master plan for the operation of a timetable by railway vehicles. A rotation is considered as a cycle that multiply traverses a set of operational days while covering trips of the timetable. As it is well known, the proper creation of rolling stock rotations by, e.g., optimization algorithms is challenging and still a topical research subject. Nevertheless, we study a completely different but strongly related question in this paper, i.e.: How to visualize a rotation? For this purpose, we introduce a basic handout concept, which directly leads to the visualization, i.e., handout of a rotation. In our industrial application at DB Fernverkehr AG, the handout is exactly as important as the rotation itself. Moreover, it turns out that also other European railway operators use exactly the same methodology (but not terminology). Since a rotation can have many handouts of different quality, we show how to compute optimal ones through an integer program (IP) by standard software. In addition, a construction as well as an improvement heuristic are presented. Our computational results show that the heuristics are a very reliable standalone approach to quickly find near-optimal and even optimal handouts. The efficiency of the heuristics is shown via a computational comparison to the IP approach. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrtpm.2019.02.001 IS - 10 SP - 1 EP - 8 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Berthold, Timo A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schade, Stanley A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Strategic Planning of Rolling Stock Rotations for Public Tenders T2 - Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis - RailNorrköping 2019 N2 - Since railway companies have to apply for long-term public contracts to operate railway lines in public tenders, the question how they can estimate the operating cost for long-term periods adequately arises naturally. We consider a rolling stock rotation problem for a time period of ten years, which is based on a real world instance provided by an industry partner. We use a two stage approach for the cost estimation of the required rolling stock. In the first stage, we determine a weekly rotation plan. In the second stage, we roll out this weekly rotation plan for a longer time period and incorporate scheduled maintenance treatments. We present a heuristic approach and a mixed integer programming model to implement the process of the second stage. Finally, we discuss computational results for a real world tendering scenario. Y1 - 2019 UR - http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/article.asp?issue=069&article=009&volume= SN - 978-91-7929-992-7 SN - 1650-3686 VL - Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings IS - 069 SP - 148 EP - 159 PB - Linköping University Electronic Press, Linköpings universitet ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Abbink, Erwin A1 - Bärmann, Andreas A1 - Bešinovic, Nikola A1 - Bohlin, Markus A1 - Cacchiani, Valentina A1 - Caimi, Gabrio A1 - de Fabris, Stefano A1 - Dollevoet, Twan A1 - Fischer, Frank A1 - Fügenschuh, Armin A1 - Galli, Laura A1 - Goverde, Rob M.P. A1 - Hansmann, Ronny A1 - Homfeld, Henning A1 - Huisman, Dennis A1 - Johann, Marc A1 - Klug, Torsten A1 - Törnquist Krasemann, Johanna A1 - Kroon, Leo A1 - Lamorgese, Leonardo A1 - Liers, Frauke A1 - Mannino, Carlo A1 - Medeossi, Giorgio A1 - Pacciarelli, Dario A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Schmidt, Marie A1 - Schöbel, Anita A1 - Schülldorf, Hanno A1 - Stieber, Anke A1 - Stiller, Sebastian A1 - Toth, Paolo A1 - Zimmermann, Uwe ED - Borndörfer, Ralf ED - Klug, Torsten ED - Lamorgese, Leonardo ED - Mannino, Carlo ED - Reuther, Markus ED - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Handbook of Optimization in the Railway Industry N2 - This book promotes the use of mathematical optimization and operations research methods in rail transportation. The editors assembled thirteen contributions from leading scholars to present a unified voice, standardize terminology, and assess the state-of-the-art. There are three main clusters of articles, corresponding to the classical stages of the planning process: strategic, tactical, and operational. These three clusters are further subdivided into five parts which correspond to the main phases of the railway network planning process: network assessment, capacity planning, timetabling, resource planning, and operational planning. Individual chapters cover: Simulation Capacity Assessment Network Design Train Routing Robust Timetabling Event Scheduling Track Allocation Blocking Shunting Rolling Stock Crew Scheduling Dispatching Delay Propagation Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-3-319-72152-1 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72153-8 VL - 268 PB - Springer Verlag ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Weider, Steffen T1 - A Hypergraph Model for Railway Vehicle Rotation Planning N2 - We propose a model for the integrated optimization of vehicle rotations and vehicle compositions in long distance railway passenger transport. The main contribution of the paper is a hypergraph model that is able to handle the challenging technical requirements as well as very general stipulations with respect to the ``regularity'' of a schedule. The hypergraph model directly generalizes network flow models, replacing arcs with hyperarcs. Although NP-hard in general, the model is computationally well-behaved in practice. High quality solutions can be produced in reasonable time using high performance Integer Programming techniques, in particular, column generation and rapid branching. We show that, in this way, large-scale real world instances of our cooperation partner DB Fernverkehr can be solved. T3 - ZIB-Report - 11-36 KW - Rolling Stock Planning, Hypergraph Modeling, Integer Programming, Column Generation, Rapid Branching Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-32746 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - A Cut Separation Approach for the Rolling Stock Rotation Problem with Vehicle Maintenance T2 - 19th Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (ATMOS 2019) N2 - For providing railway services the company’s railway rolling stock is one if not the most important ingredient. It decides about the number of passenger or cargo trips the company can offer, about the quality a passenger experiences the train ride and it is often related to the image of the company itself. Thus, it is highly desired to have the available rolling stock in the best shape possible. Moreover, in many countries, as Germany where our industrial partner DB Fernverkehr AG (DBF) is located, laws enforce regular vehicle inspections to ensure the safety of the passengers. This leads to rolling stock optimization problems with complex rules for vehicle maintenance. This problem is well studied in the literature for example see Maroti and Kroon 2005, or Cordeau et. al. 2001 for applications including vehicle maintenance. The contribution of this paper is a new algorithmic approach to solve the Rolling Stock Rotation Problem for the ICE high speed train fleet of DBF with included vehicle maintenance. It is based on a relaxation of a mixed integer linear programming model with an iterative cut generation to enforce the feasibility of a solution of the relaxation in the solution space of the original problem. The resulting mixed integer linear programming model is based on a hypergraph approach presented in Borndörfer et. al. 2015. The new approach is tested on real world instances modeling different scenarios for the ICE high speed train network in Germany and compared to the approaches of Reuther 2017 that are in operation at DB Fernverkehr AG. The approach shows a significant reduction of the run time to produce solutions with comparable or even better objective function values. T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-61 Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-75501 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas ED - Cacchiani, Valentina ED - Marchetti-Spaccamela, Alberto T1 - A Cut Separation Approach for the Rolling Stock Rotation Problem with Vehicle Maintenance T2 - 19th Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (ATMOS 2019) N2 - For providing railway services the company's railway rolling stock is one if not the most important ingredient. It decides about the number of passenger or cargo trips the company can offer, about the quality a passenger experiences the train ride and it is often related to the image of the company itself. Thus, it is highly desired to have the available rolling stock in the best shape possible. Moreover, in many countries, as Germany where our industrial partner DB Fernverkehr AG (DBF) is located, laws enforce regular vehicle inspections to ensure the safety of the passengers. This leads to rolling stock optimization problems with complex rules for vehicle maintenance. This problem is well studied in the literature for example see [Maróti and Kroon, 2005; Gábor Maróti and Leo G. Kroon, 2007], or [Cordeau et al., 2001] for applications including vehicle maintenance. The contribution of this paper is a new algorithmic approach to solve the Rolling Stock Rotation Problem for the ICE high speed train fleet of DBF with included vehicle maintenance. It is based on a relaxation of a mixed integer linear programming model with an iterative cut generation to enforce the feasibility of a solution of the relaxation in the solution space of the original problem. The resulting mixed integer linear programming model is based on a hypergraph approach presented in [Ralf Borndörfer et al., 2015]. The new approach is tested on real world instances modeling different scenarios for the ICE high speed train network in Germany and compared to the approaches of [Reuther, 2017] that are in operation at DB Fernverkehr AG. The approach shows a significant reduction of the run time to produce solutions with comparable or even better objective function values. Y1 - 2019 UR - https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2019/11413/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2019.1 VL - 75 SP - 1:1 EP - 1:12 PB - Schloss Dagstuhl--Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik CY - Dagstuhl, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Karbstein, Marika A1 - Mehrgahrdt, Julika A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - The Cycle Embedding Problem T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2014 N2 - Given two hypergraphs, representing a fine and a coarse "layer", and a cycle cover of the nodes of the coarse layer, the cycle embedding problem (CEP) asks for an embedding of the coarse cycles into the fine layer. The CEP is NP-hard for general hypergraphs, but it can be solved in polynomial time for graphs. We propose an integer rogramming formulation for the CEP that provides a complete escription of the CEP polytope for the graphical case. The CEP comes up in railway vehicle rotation scheduling. We present computational results for problem instances of DB Fernverkehr AG that justify a sequential coarse-first-fine-second planning approach. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28697-6_65 SP - 465 EP - 472 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Renken, Malte A1 - Ahmadi, Amin A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Sahin, Guvenc A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Demand-Driven Line Planning with Selfish Routing T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2017 N2 - Bus rapid transit systems in developing and newly industrialized countries are often operated at the limits of passenger capacity. In particular, demand during morning and afternoon peaks is hardly or even not covered with available line plans. In order to develop demand-driven line plans, we use two mathematical models in the form of integer programming problem formulations. While the actual demand data is specified with origin-destination pairs, the arc-based model considers the demand over the arcs derived from the origin-destination demand. In order to test the accuracy of the models in terms of demand satisfaction, we simulate the optimal solutions and compare number of transfers and travel times. We also question the effect of a selfish route choice behavior which in theory results in a Braess-like paradox by increasing the number of transfers when system capacity is increased with additional lines. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89920-6_91 SP - 687 EP - 692 PB - Springer International Publishing ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schade, Stanley A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Witzig, Jakob T1 - Structure-based Decomposition for Pattern-Detection for Railway Timetables T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2017 N2 - We consider the problem of pattern detection in large scale railway timetables. This problem arises in rolling stock optimization planning in order to identify invariant sections of the timetable for which a cyclic rotation plan is adequate. We propose a dual reduction technique which leads to an decomposition and enumeration method. Computational results for real world instances demonstrate that the method is able to produce optimal solutions as fast as standard MIP solvers. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89920-6_95 SP - 715 EP - 721 PB - Springer International Publishing ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Breuer, Matthias A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schade, Stanley A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Timetable Sparsification by Rolling Stock Rotation Optimization T2 - Operations Research 2017 N2 - Rolling stock optimization is a task that naturally arises by operating a railway system. It could be seen with different level of details. From a strategic perspective to have a rough plan which types of fleets to be bought to a more operational perspective to decide which coaches have to be maintained first. This paper presents a new approach to deal with rolling stock optimisation in case of a (long term) strike. Instead of constructing a completely new timetable for the strike period, we propose a mixed integer programming model that is able to choose appropriate trips from a given timetable to construct efficient tours of railway vehicles covering an optimized subset of trips, in terms of deadhead kilometers and importance of the trips. The decision which trip is preferred over the other is made by a simple evaluation method that is deduced from the network and trip defining data. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89920-6_96 SP - 723 EP - 728 PB - Springer International Publishing ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Schelten, Uwe A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Weider, Steffen T1 - A Column Generation Approach to Airline Crew Scheduling N2 - The airline crew scheduling problem deals with the construction of crew rotations in order to cover the flights of a given schedule at minimum cost. The problem involves complex rules for the legality and costs of individual pairings and base constraints for the availability of crews at home bases. A typical instance considers a planning horizon of one month and several thousand flights. We propose a column generation approach for solving airline crew scheduling problems that is based on a set partitioning model. We discuss algorithmic aspects such as the use of bundle techniques for the fast, approximate solution of linear programs, a pairing generator that combines Lagrangean shortest path and callback techniques, and a novel rapid branching'' IP heuristic. Computational results for a number of industrial instances are reported. Our approach has been implemented within the commercial crew scheduling system NetLine/Crew of Lufthansa Systems Berlin GmbH. T3 - ZIB-Report - 05-37 KW - Integer Programming KW - Airline Crew Scheduling KW - Branch and Generate Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-8713 ER - TY - THES A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Railway Track Allocation: Models and Algorithms N2 - This thesis is about mathematical optimization for the efficient use of railway infrastructure. We address the optimal allocation of the available railway track capacity - the track allocation problem. This track allocation problem is a major challenge for a railway company, independent of whether a free market, a private monopoly, or a public monopoly is given. Planning and operating railway transportation systems is extremely hard due to the combinatorial complexity of the underlying discrete optimization problems, the technical intricacies, and the immense sizes of the problem instances. Mathematical models and optimization techniques can result in huge gains for both railway customers and operators, e.g., in terms of cost reductions or service quality improvements. We tackle this challenge by developing novel mathematical models and associated innovative algorithmic solution methods for large scale instances. This allows us to produce for the first time reliable solutions for a real world instance, i.e., the Simplon corridor in Switzerland. The opening chapter gives a comprehensive overview on railway planning problems. This provides insights into the regulatory and technical framework, it discusses the interaction of several planning steps, and identifies optimization potentials in railway transportation. The remainder of the thesis is comprised of two major parts. The first part is concerned with modeling railway systems to allow for resource and capacity analysis. Railway capacity has basically two dimensions, a space dimension which are the physical infrastructure elements as well as a time dimension that refers to the train movements, i.e., occupation or blocking times, on the physical infrastructure. Railway safety systems operate on the same principle all over the world. A train has to reserve infrastructure blocks for some time to pass through. Two trains reserving the same block of the infrastructure within the same point in time is called block conflict. Therefore, models for railway capacity involve the definition and calculation of reasonable running and associated reservation and blocking times to allow for a conflict free allocation. In the second and main part of the thesis, the optimal track allocation problem for macroscopic models of the railway system is considered. The literature for related problems is surveyed. A graph-theoretic model for the track allocation problem is developed. In that model optimal track allocations correspond to conflict-free paths in special time-expanded graphs. Furthermore, we made considerable progress on solving track allocation problems by two main features - a novel modeling approach for the macroscopic track allocation problem and algorithmic improvements based on the utilization of the bundle method. Finally, we go back to practice and present in the last chapter several case studies using the tools netcast and tsopt. We provide a computational comparison of our new models and standard packing models used in the literature. Our computational experience indicates that our approach, i.e., ``configuration models'', outperforms other models. Moreover, the rapid branching heuristic and the bundle method enable us to produce high quality solutions for very large scale instances, which has not been possible before. In addition, we present results for a theoretical and rather visionary auction framework for track allocation. We discuss several auction design questions and analyze experiments of various auction simulations. The highlights are results for the Simplon corridor in Switzerland. We optimized the train traffic through this tunnel using our models and software tools. To the best knowledge of the author and confirmed by several railway practitioners this was the first time that fully automatically produced track allocations on a macroscopic scale fulfill the requirements of the originating microscopic model, withstand the evaluation in the microscopic simulation tool OpenTrack, and exploit the infrastructure capacity. This documents the success of our approach in practice and the usefulness and applicability of mathematical optimization to railway track allocation. KW - railway track allocation KW - large-scale integer programming KW - network aggregation KW - rapid branching Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus-34272 UR - http://opus.kobv.de/tuberlin/volltexte/2012/3427/pdf/schlechte_thomas.pdf SN - 978-3-8381-3222-8 PB - Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften CY - Saarbrücken, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Grötschel, Martin A1 - Lukac, Sascha A1 - Mitusch, Kay A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Schultz, Sören A1 - Tanner, Andreas T1 - An Auctioning Approach to Railway Slot Allocation JF - Competition and Regulation in Network Industries Y1 - 2006 VL - 1 IS - 2 SP - 163 EP - 196 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ebert, Patricia A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Schwartz, Stephan T1 - Scheduling for German Road Inspectors N2 - For the yearly over 500,000 vehicle inspections of the German Federal Logistics and Mobility Office (BALM), crew rosters must be scheduled to efficiently achieve Germany's road inspection control targets. For that, we present a model to solve the respective duty scheduling and crew rostering problem in order to obtain duty rosters that comply with numerous legal regulations while maximizing the 'control success' to achieve the control targets. We formulate the Template Assignment Problem, which can be modelled as a large scale mixed-integer linear program. Here, feasible combinations of control topics are assigned to the duties using a hypergraph approach. The model is used in production by BALM, and we prove its effectiveness on a number of real-world instances. T3 - ZIB-Report - 25-13 KW - scheduling KW - rostering KW - mixed-integer linear program KW - crew scheduling KW - hypergraph Y1 - 2025 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-101999 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Weider, Steffen T1 - Integrated Optimization of Rolling Stock Rotations for Intercity Railways N2 - This paper provides a highly integrated solution approach for rolling stock planning problems in the context of intercity passenger traffic. The main contributions are a generic hypergraph based mixed integer programming model and an integrated algorithm for the considered rolling stock rotation planning problem. The new developed approach is able to handle a very large set of industrial railway requirements, such as vehicle composition, maintenance constraints, infrastructure capacity, and regularity aspects. By the integration of this large bundle of technical railway aspects, we show that our approach has the power to produce implementable rolling stock rotations for our industrial cooperation partner DB Fernverkehr. This is the first time that the rolling stock rotations at DB Fernverkehr could be optimized by an automated system utilizing advanced mathematical programming techniques. T3 - ZIB-Report - 12-39 KW - Mixed Integer Programming KW - Railway Optimization KW - Rolling Stock Rostering Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-16424 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Fügenschuh, Armin A1 - Klug, Torsten A1 - Schang, Thilo A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Schülldorf, Hanno T1 - The Freight Train Routing Problem N2 - We consider the following freight train routing problem (FTRP). Given is a transportation network with fixed routes for passenger trains and a set of freight trains (requests), each defined by an origin and destination station pair. The objective is to calculate a feasible route for each freight train such that a sum of all expected delays and all running times is minimal. Previous research concentrated on microscopic train routings for junctions or inside major stations. Only recently approaches were developed to tackle larger corridors or even networks. We investigate the routing problem from a strategic perspective, calculating the routes in a macroscopic transportation network of Deutsche Bahn AG. Here macroscopic refers to an aggregation of complex real-world structures are into fewer network elements. Moreover, the departure and arrival times of freight trains are approximated. The problem has a strategic character since it asks only for a coarse routing through the network without the precise timings. We give a mixed-integer nonlinear programming~(MINLP) formulation for FTRP, which is a multi-commodity flow model on a time-expanded graph with additional routing constraints. The model's nonlinearities are due to an algebraic approximation of the delays of the trains on the arcs of the network by capacity restraint functions. The MINLP is reduced to a mixed-integer linear model~(MILP) by piecewise linear approximation. The latter is solved by a state of the art MILP solver for various real-world test instances. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-36 KW - Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming KW - multi-commodity flows KW - freight train routing Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-18991 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Denißen, Jonas A1 - Heller, Simon A1 - Klug, Torsten A1 - Küpper, Michael A1 - Lindner, Niels A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Söhlke, Andreas A1 - Steadman, William T1 - Microscopic Timetable Optimization for a Moving Block System N2 - We present an optimization model which is capable of routing and ordering trains on a microscopic level under a moving block regime. Based on a general timetabling definition (GTTP) that allows the plug in of arbitrarily detailed methods to compute running and headway times, we describe a layered graph approach using velocity expansion, and develop a mixed integer linear programming formulation. Finally, we present promising results for a German corridor scenario with mixed traffic, indicating that applying branch-and-cut to our model is able to solve reasonably sized instances with up to hundred trains to optimality. T3 - ZIB-Report - 21-13 KW - Moving Block KW - Railway Track Allocation KW - Railway Timetabling KW - Train Routing Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-82547 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Stephan, Rüdiger A1 - Winkler, Michael T1 - Solving steel mill slab design problems N2 - The steel mill slab design problem from the CSPLIB is a combinatorial optimization problem motivated by an application of the steel industry. It has been widely studied in the constraint programming community. Several methods were proposed to solve this problem. A steel mill slab library was created which contains 380 instances. A closely related binpacking problem called the multiple knapsack problem with color constraints, originated from the same industrial problem, was discussed in the integer programming community. In particular, a simple integer program for this problem has been given by Forrest et al. The aim of this paper is to bring these different studies together. Moreover, we adapt the model of Forrest et al. for the steel mill slab design problem. Using this model and a state-of-the-art integer program solver all instances of the steel mill slab library can be solved efficiently to optimality. We improved, thereby, the solution values of 76 instances compared to previous results. Finally, we consider a recently introduced variant of the steel mill slab design problem, where within all solutions which minimize the leftover one is interested in a solution which requires a minimum number of slabs. For that variant we introduce two approaches and solve all instances of the steel mill slab library with this slightly changed objective function to optimality. T3 - ZIB-Report - 11-38 KW - steel mill slab design problem KW - multiple knapsack problem with color constraints KW - integer programming KW - set partitioning KW - binpacking with side constraints Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-14089 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Harrod, Steven A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - A Direct Comparison of Physical Block Occupancy Versus Timed Block Occupancy in Train Timetabling Formulations N2 - Two fundamental mathematical formulations for railway timetabling are compared on a common set of sample problems, representing both multiple track high density services in Europe and single track bidirectional operations in North America. One formulation, ACP, enforces against conflicts by constraining time intervals between trains, while the other formulation, HGF, monitors physical occupation of controlled track segments. The results demonstrate that both ACP and HGF return comparable solutions in the aggregate, with some significant differences in select instances, and a pattern of significant differences in performance and constraint enforcement overall. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-18 KW - Railway Scheduling KW - Train Timetabling KW - Track Allocation Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-17946 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Railway Track Allocation - Simulation and Optimization N2 - Today the railway timetabling process and the track allocation is one of the most challenging problems to solve by a railway infrastructure provider. Especially due to the deregulation of the transport market in the recent years several suppliers of railway traffic have entered the market. This leads to an increase of slot requests and then it is natural that conflicts occur among them. Furthermore, railway infrastructure networks consist of very expensive assets, even more they are rigid due to the long-term upgrade process. In order to make best use of these valuable infrastructure and to ensure economic operation, efficient planning of the railway operation is indispensable. Mathematical optimization models and algorithmic methodology can help to automatize and tackle these challenges. Our contribution in this paper is to present a renewed planning process due to the liberalization in Europe and a general framework to support the integration of simulation and optimization for railway capacity allocation. T3 - ZIB-Report - 11-32 KW - railway models KW - railway capacity KW - track allocation framework Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-13632 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Raack, Christian A1 - Raymond, Annie A1 - Werner, Axel A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Integer Programming and Sports Rankings N2 - Sports rankings are obtained by applying a system of rules to evaluate the performance of the participants in a competition. We consider rankings that result from assigning an ordinal rank to each competitor according to their performance. We develop an integer programming model for rankings that allows us to calculate the number of points needed to guarantee a team the ith position, as well as the minimum number of points that could yield the ith place. The model is very general and can thus be applied to many types of sports. We discuss examples coming from football (soccer), ice hockey, and Formula~1. We answer various questions and debunk a few myths along the way. Are 40 points enough to avoid relegation in the Bundesliga? Do 95 points guarantee the participation of a team in the NHL playoffs? Moreover, in the season restructuration currently under consideration in the NHL, will it be easier or harder to access the playoffs? Is it possible to win the Formula~1 World Championship without winning at least one race or without even climbing once on the podium? Finally, we observe that the optimal solutions of the aforementioned model are associated to extreme situations which are unlikely to happen. Thus, to get closer to realistic scenarios, we enhance the model by adding some constraints inferred from the results of the previous years. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-19 KW - sport ranking KW - integer programming Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-18068 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Railway Track Allocation N2 - This article gives an overview of the results of the author's PhD thesis. The thesis deals with the mathematical optimization for the efficient use of railway infrastructure. We address the optimal allocation of the available railway track capacity - the track allocation problem. This track allocation problem is a major challenge for a railway company, independent of whether a free market, a private monopoly, or a public monopoly is given. Planning and operating railway transportation systems is extremely hard due to the combinatorial complexity of the underlying discrete optimization problems, the technical intricacies, and the immense sizes of the problem instances. Mathematical models and optimization techniques can result in huge gains for both railway customers and operators, e.g., in terms of cost reductions or service quality improvements. We tackle this challenge by developing novel mathematical models and associated innovative algorithmic solution methods for large scale instances. We made considerable progress on solving track allocation problems by two main features - a novel modeling approach for the macroscopic track allocation problem and algorithmic improvements based on the utilization of the bundle method. This allows us to produce for the first time reliable solutions for a real world instance, i.e., the Simplon corridor in Switzerland. T3 - ZIB-Report - 12-38 KW - large-scale integer programming KW - network aggregation KW - configuration models KW - rapid branching Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-16402 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Weider, Steffen T1 - Railway Track Allocation by Rapid Branching N2 - The track allocation problem, also known as train routing problem or train timetabling problem, is to find a conflict-free set of train routes of maximum value in a railway network. Although it can be modeled as a standard path packing problem, instances of sizes relevant for real-world railway applications could not be solved up to now. We propose a rapid branching column generation approach that integrates the solution of the LP relaxation of a path coupling formulation of the problem with a special rounding heuristic. The approach is based on and exploits special properties of the bundle method for the approximate solution of convex piecewise linear functions. Computational results for difficult instances of the benchmark library TTPLIB are reported. T3 - ZIB-Report - 10-22 KW - Trassenallokationsproblem KW - Ganzzahlige Programmierung KW - Rapid-Branching-Heuristik KW - Proximale Bündelmethode KW - Optimization KW - Railway Track Allocation KW - Bundle Method KW - Rapid Branching Y1 - 2010 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-11864 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Raack, Christian A1 - Raymond, Annie A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Werner, Axel T1 - Standings in sports competitions using integer programming JF - Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/jqas-2013-0111 VL - 10 IS - 2 SP - 131 EP - 137 PB - De Gruyter ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Railway Track Allocation BT - Selected Papers of the International Annual Conference of the German Operations Research Society (GOR), Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany, September 5-7, 2012 T2 - Operations Research Proceedings Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00795-314 SP - 15 EP - 20 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Weider, Steffen ED - Muñoz, J. C. ED - Voß, S. T1 - Vehicle Rotation Planning for Intercity Railways JF - Proceedings of Conference on Advanced Systems for Public Transport 2012 (CASPT12) N2 - This paper provides a generic formulation for rolling stock planning problems in the context of intercity passenger traffic. The main contributions are a graph theoretical model and a Mixed-Integer-Programming formulation that integrate all main requirements of the considered Vehicle-Rotation-Planning problem (VRPP). We show that it is possible to solve this model for real-world instances provided by our industrial partner DB Fernverkehr AG using modern algorithms and computers. Y1 - 2012 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Löbel, Andreas A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Weider, Steffen ED - Muñoz, J. C. ED - Voß, S. T1 - Rapid Branching JF - Public Transport N2 - We propose rapid branching (RB) as a general branch-and-bound heuristic for solving large scale optimization problems in traffic and transport. The key idea is to combine a special branching rule and a greedy node selection strategy in order to produce solutions of controlled quality rapidly and efficiently. We report on three successful applications of the method for integrated vehicle and crew scheduling, railway track allocation, and railway vehicle rotation planning. Y1 - 2013 VL - 5 IS - 1 SP - 3 EP - 23 PB - Springer Berlin Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heinz, Stefan A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Stephan, Rüdiger A1 - Winkler, Michael T1 - Solving steel mill slab design problems JF - Constraints N2 - The steel mill slab design problem from the CSPLIB is a combinatorial optimization problem motivated by an application of the steel industry. It has been widely studied in the constraint programming community. Several methods were proposed to solve this problem. A steel mill slab library was created which contains 380 instances. A closely related binpacking problem called the multiple knapsack problem with color constraints, originated from the same industrial problem, was discussed in the integer programming community. In particular, a simple integer program for this problem has been given by Forrest et al. (INFORMS J Comput 18:129–134, 2006). The aim of this paper is to bring these different studies together. Moreover, we adapt the model of Forrest et al. (INFORMS J Comput 18:129–134, 2006) for the steel mill slab design problem. Using this model and a state-of-the-art integer program solver all instances of the steel mill slab library can be solved efficiently to optimality. We improved, thereby, the solution values of 76 instances compared to previous results (Schaus et al., Constraints 16:125–147, 2010). Finally, we consider a recently introduced variant of the steel mill slab design problem, where within all solutions which minimize the leftover one is interested in a solution which requires a minimum number of slabs. For that variant we introduce two approaches and solve all instances of the steel mill slab library with this slightly changed objective function to optimality. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10601-011-9113-8 VL - 17 IS - 1 SP - 39 EP - 50 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Swarat, Elmar T1 - Railway Track Allocation -- Simulation, Aggregation, and Optimization JF - Proc. 1st International Workshop on High-speed and Intercity Railways (IWHIR 2011) N2 - Today the railway timetabling process and the track allocation is one of the most challenging problems to solve by a railway company. Especially due to the deregulation of the transport market in the recent years several suppliers of railway traffic have entered the market in Europe. This leads to more potential conflicts between trains caused by an increasing demand of train paths. Planning and operating railway transportation systems is extremely hard due to the combinatorial complexity of the underlying discrete optimization problems, the technical intricacies, and the immense size of the problem instances. In order to make best use of the infrastructure and to ensure economic operation, efficient planning of the railway operation is indispensable. Mathematical optimization models and algorithms can help to automatize and tackle these challenges. Our contribution in this paper is to present a renewed planning process due to the liberalization in Europe and an associated concept for track allocation, that consists of three important parts, simulation, aggregation, and optimization. Furthermore, we present results of our general framework for real world data. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27963-8 VL - 2 IS - 148 SP - 53 EP - 70 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Weider, Steffen T1 - A Hypergraph Model for Railway Vehicle Rotation Planning JF - 11th Workshop on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems N2 - We propose a model for the integrated optimization of vehicle rotations and vehicle compositions in long distance railway passenger transport. The main contribution of the paper is a hypergraph model that is able to handle the challenging technical requirements as well as very general stipulations with respect to the ``regularity'' of a schedule. The hypergraph model directly generalizes network flow models, replacing arcs with hyperarcs. Although NP-hard in general, the model is computationally well-behaved in practice. High quality solutions can be produced in reasonable time using high performance Integer Programming techniques, in particular, column generation and rapid branching. We show that, in this way, large-scale real world instances of our cooperation partner DB Fernverkehr can be solved. Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2011.146 VL - OpenAccess Series in Informatics (OASIcs) IS - 20 SP - 146 EP - 155 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Railway Track Allocation - Simulation and Optimization JF - Proceedings of 4th International Seminar on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis (IAROR) N2 - Today the railway timetabling process and the track allocation is one of the most challenging problems to solve by a railway infrastructure provider. Especially due to the deregulation of the transport market in the recent years several suppliers of railway traffic have entered the market. This leads to an increase of slot requests and then it is natural that conflicts occur among them. Furthermore, railway infrastructure networks consist of very expensive assets, even more they are rigid due to the long-term upgrade process. In order to make best use of these valuable infrastructure and to ensure economic operation, efficient planning of the railway operation is indispensable. Mathematical optimization models and algorithmic methodology can help to automatize and tackle these challenges. Our contribution in this paper is to present a renewed planning process due to the liberalization in Europe and a general framework to support the integration of simulation and optimization for railway capacity allocation. Y1 - 2011 VL - 4 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Blanco, Marco A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Analysis of Micro-Macro Transformations of Railway Networks N2 - A common technique in the solution of large or complex optimization problems is the use of micro-macro transformations. In this paper, we carry out a theoretical analysis of such transformations for the track allocation problem in railway networks. We prove that the cumulative rounding technique of Schlechte et al. satisfies two of three natural optimality criteria and that this performance cannot be improved. We also show that under extreme circumstances, this technique can perform inconvieniently by underestimating the global optimal value. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-65 Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-42710 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Mehrgardt, Julika A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Waas, Kerstin T1 - Re-optimization of Rolling Stock Rotations N2 - The Rolling Stock Rotation Problem is to schedule rail vehicles in order to cover timetabled trips by a cost optimal set of vehicle rotations. The problem integrates several facets of railway optimization, i.e., vehicle composition, maintenance constraints, and regularity aspects. In industrial applications existing schedules often have to be re-optimized to integrate timetable changes or construction sites. We present an integrated modeling and algorithmic approach for this task as well as computational results for industrial problem instances of DB Fernverkehr AG. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-60 Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-42569 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Fügenschuh, Armin A1 - Klug, Torsten A1 - Schang, Thilo A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Schülldorf, Hanno T1 - The Freight Train Routing Problem for Congested Railway Networks with Mixed Traffic JF - Transportation Science N2 - We consider the following freight train routing problem (FTRP). Given is a transportation network with fixed routes for passenger trains and a set of freight trains (requests), each defined by an origin and destination station pair. The objective is to calculate a feasible route for each freight train such that the sum of all expected delays and all running times is minimal. Previous research concentrated on microscopic train routings for junctions or inside major stations. Only recently approaches were developed to tackle larger corridors or even networks. We investigate the routing problem from a strategic perspective, calculating the routes in a macroscopic transportation network of Deutsche Bahn AG. In this context, macroscopic refers to an aggregation of complex and large real-world structures into fewer network elements. Moreover, the departure and arrival times of freight trains are approximated. The problem has a strategic character since it asks only for a coarse routing through the network without the precise timings. We provide a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) formulation for the FTRP, which is a multicommodity flow model on a time-expanded graph with additional routing constraints. The model’s nonlinearities originate from an algebraic approximation of the delays of the trains on the arcs of the network by capacity restraint functions. The MINLP is reduced to a mixed-integer linear model (MILP) by piecewise linear approximation. The latter is solved by a state-of-the art MILP solver for various real-world test instances. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2015.0656 VL - 50 IS - 2 SP - 408 EP - 423 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Reuther, Markus A1 - Schlechte, Thomas T1 - Template based re-optimization of rolling stock rotations T2 - Proceedings of Conference on Advanced Systems in Public Transport 2015 (CASPT2015) N2 - Rolling stock, i.e., rail vehicles, are among the most expensive and limited assets of a railway company. They must be used efficiently applying optimization techniques. One important aspect is re-optimization, which is the topic that we consider in this paper. We propose a template concept that allows to compute cost minimal rolling stock rotations under a large variety of re-optimization requirements. Two examples, involving a connection template and a rotation template, are discussed. An implementation within the rolling stock rotation optimizer rotor and computational results for scenarios provided by DB Fernverkehr AG, one of the leading railway operators in Europe, are presented. Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-57539 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Erol, Berkan A1 - Schlechte, Thomas ED - Hansen, I. ED - Wendler, E. ED - Weidmann, U. ED - Lüthi, M. ED - Rodriguez, J. ED - Ricci, S. ED - Kroon, Leo T1 - Optimization of macroscopic train schedules via TS-OPT T2 - Proceedings of the 3rd International Seminar on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis - Engineering and Optimisation Approaches Y1 - 2009 CY - Zürich, Switzerland ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Tanner, Andreas T1 - Railway capacity auctions with dual prices T2 - Selected Proceedings of the 12th World Conference on Transport Research Y1 - 2010 UR - http://opus.kobv.de/zib/volltexte/2010/1233/ ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Erol, Berkan A1 - Klemenz, Marc A1 - Schlechte, Thomas A1 - Schultz, Sören A1 - Tanner, Andreas ED - Tomii, A. ED - Allan, J. ED - Arias, E. ED - Brebbia, C. ED - Goodman, C. ED - Rumsey, A. ED - Sciutto, G. T1 - TTPlib 2008 - A Library for Train Timetabling Problems T2 - Computers in Railways XI Y1 - 2008 UR - http://opus.kobv.de/zib/volltexte/2008/1102/ PB - WIT Press ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Schlechte, Thomas ED - Liebchen, Christian ED - Ahuja, Ravindra ED - Mesa, Juan T1 - Models for Railway Track Allocation T2 - ATMOS 2007 - 7th Workshop on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modeling, Optimization, and Systems Y1 - 2007 VL - 07001 PB - Internationales Begegnungs- und Forschungszentrum für Informatik (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Schlechte, Thomas ED - Ehrgott, Matthias ED - Naujoks, Boris ED - Stewart, Theo ED - Wallenius, Jyrki T1 - Balancing Efficiency and Robustness T2 - MCDM for Sustainable Energy and Transportation Systems Y1 - 2008 UR - http://opus.kobv.de/zib/volltexte/2008/1105/ PB - Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems ER -