TY - CHAP A1 - Masing, Berenike A1 - Lindner, Niels A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf ED - Trautmann, Norbert ED - Drägi, Mario T1 - Optimal Line Plans in the Parametric City and the Impact of In-Motion Costs T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2021 N2 - Line planning in public transport involves determining vehicle routes and assigning frequencies of service such that travel demands are satisfied. We evaluate how line plans, which are optimal with respect to in-motion costs (IMC), the objective function depending purely on arc-lengths for both user and operator costs, performs with respect to the value of resources consumed (VRC). The latter is an elaborate, socio-economic cost function which includes discomfort caused by delay, boarding and alighting times, and transfers. Even though discomfort is a large contributing factor to VRC and is entirely disregarded in IMC,  we observe that the two cost functions are qualitatively comparable. Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-3-031-08623-6 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08623-6_44 SP - 295 EP - 301 PB - Springer, Cham ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schiewe, Philine A1 - Goerigk, Marc A1 - Lindner, Niels T1 - Introducing TimPassLib – A Library for Integrated Periodic Timetabling and Passenger Routing JF - Operations Research Forum N2 - Classic models to derive a timetable for public transport often face a chicken-and-egg situation: A good timetable should offer passengers routes with small travel times, but the route choice of passengers depends on the timetable. While models that fix passenger routes were frequently considered in the literature, integrated models that simultaneously optimize timetables and passenger routes have seen increasing attention lately. This creates a growing need for a set of instances that allows to test and compare new algorithmic developments for the integrated problem. Our paper addresses this requirement by presenting TimPassLib, a new benchmark library of instances for integrated periodic timetabling and passenger routing. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s43069-023-00244-1 VL - 4 IS - 3 SP - 64 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Blanco, Marco A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Maristany de las Casas, Pedro T1 - An A* Algorithm for Flight Planning Based on Idealized Vertical Profiles T2 - 22nd Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (ATMOS 2022) N2 - The Flight Planning Problem is to find a minimum fuel trajectory between two airports in a 3D airway network under consideration of the wind. We show that this problem is NP-hard, even in its most basic version. We then present a novel A∗ heuristic, whose potential function is derived from an idealized vertical profile over the remaining flight distance. This potential is, under rather general assumptions, both admissible and consistent and it can be computed efficiently. The method outperforms the state-of-the-art heuristic on real-life instances. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2022.1 VL - 106 SP - 1:1 EP - 1:15 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Masing, Berenike A1 - Lindner, Niels A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf T1 - The price of symmetric line plans in the Parametric City JF - Transportation Research Part B: Methodological N2 - We consider the line planning problem in public transport in the Parametric City, an idealized model that captures typical scenarios by a (small) number of parameters. The Parametric City is rotation symmetric, but optimal line plans are not always symmetric. This raises the question to quantify the symmetry gap between the best symmetric and the overall best solution. For our analysis, we formulate the line planning problem as a mixed integer linear program, that can be solved in polynomial time if the solutions are forced to be symmetric. We prove that the symmetry gap is small when a specific Parametric City parameter is fixed, and we give an approximation algorithm for line planning in the Parametric City in this case. While the symmetry gap can be arbitrarily large in general, we show that symmetric line plans are a good choice in most practical situations. Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-88613 VL - 166 SP - 419 EP - 443 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Beckenbach, Isabel T1 - Von Graphen zu Hypergraphen JF - OR News Y1 - 2020 SN - 1437-2045 IS - 70 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Bushe, Julian T1 - Assignment Based Resource Constrained Path Generation for Railway Rolling Stock Optimization T2 - 23rd Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (ATMOS 2023) N2 - The fundamental task of every passenger railway operator is to offer an attractive railway timetable to the passengers while operating it as cost efficiently as possible. The available rolling stock has to be assigned to trips so that all trips are operated, operational requirements are satisfied, and the operating costs are minimum. This so-called Rolling Stock Rotation Problem (RSRP) is well studied in the literature. In this paper we consider an acyclic version of the RSRP that includes vehicle maintenance. As the latter is an important aspect, maintenance services have to be planned simultaneously to ensure the rotation’s feasibility in practice. Indeed, regular maintenance is important for the safety and reliability of the rolling stock as well as enforced by law in many countries. We present a new integer programming formulation that links a hyperflow to model vehicle compositions and their coupling decisions to a set of path variables that take care of the resource consumption of the individual vehicles. To solve the model we developed different column generation algorithms which are compared to each other as well as to the MILP flow formulation of [Ralf Borndörfer et al., 2016] on a test set of real world instances. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2023.13 VL - 115 SP - 13:1 EP - 13:15 PB - Schloss Dagstuhl--Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik CY - Dagstuhl, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf A1 - Grimm, Boris A1 - Schade, Stanley T1 - A Robustness Analysis of Long Distance Train Crew Schedules in Germany T2 - Proceedings Of The Fifth Iinternational Conference On Railway Technology: Research, Development and Maintenance N2 - Nowadays railway networks are highly complex and often very fragile systems. A wide variety of individual operations that influence each other have to go hand in hand to end up with a smoothly and efficiently running system. Many of these operations suffer from uncertainty as trains could be delayed, the signaling system be disrupted or scheduled crews could be ill. Usually these opartions could be organized hierarchically from long term strategical decisions to real time decision management. Each stage in the hierarchy defines a different mathematical optimization problem, which is solved sequentially. At every stage the knowledge about preceding or succeeding planning stages may vary and also the interaction between two stages in this chain of problems may vary from almost no interaction to highly dependent situations. This paper deals with a topic that is an example for the latter case, namely the interaction between vehicle schedules, vehicle punctuality, and crew schedules. To reduce the number of potential rescheduling actions we developed a software tool in cooperation with our practical partner DB Fernverkehr AG (DBF) to predict a certain set of critical crew schedules. This tool evaluates, predicts, and determines "bottlenecks" in the crew schedule in the sense of potentially required rescheduling actions due to likely delays. The approach was tested on real life crew and train timetable data of DBF and can be regarded as the computation of key performance indicators, which is often desired. For our experiments we had access to the operated timetable and crew schedule of DBF for periods of two and six weeks in 2019. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4203/ccc.1.23.17 SN - 2753-3239 VL - CCC 1 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bortoletto, Enrico A1 - Lindner, Niels A1 - Masing, Berenike T1 - Tropical Neighbourhood Search: A New Heuristic for Periodic Timetabling T2 - 22nd Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (ATMOS 2022) N2 - Periodic timetabling is a central aspect of both the long-term organization and the day-to-day operations of a public transportation system. The Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP), the combinatorial optimization problem that forms the mathematical basis of periodic timetabling, is an extremely hard problem, for which optimal solutions are hardly ever found in practice. The most prominent solving strategies today are based on mixed-integer programming, and there is a concurrent PESP solver employing a wide range of heuristics [Borndörfer et al., 2020]. We present tropical neighborhood search (tns), a novel PESP heuristic. The method is based on the relations between periodic timetabling and tropical geometry [Bortoletto et al., 2022]. We implement tns into the concurrent solver, and test it on instances of the benchmarking library PESPlib. The inclusion of tns turns out to be quite beneficial to the solver: tns is able to escape local optima for the modulo network simplex algorithm, and the overall share of improvement coming from tns is substantial compared to the other methods available in the solver. Finally, we provide better primal bounds for five PESPlib instances. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2022.3 VL - 106 SP - 3:1 EP - 3:19 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bortoletto, Enrico A1 - Lindner, Niels A1 - Masing, Berenike T1 - Periodic Timetabling with Cyclic Order Constraints T2 - 23rd Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (ATMOS 2023) N2 - Periodic timetabling for highly utilized railway networks is a demanding challenge. We formulate an infrastructure-aware extension of the Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP) by requiring that not only events, but also activities using the same infrastructure must be separated by a minimum headway time. This extended problem can be modeled as a mixed-integer program by adding constraints on the sum of periodic tensions along certain cycles, so that it shares some structural properties with standard PESP. We further refine this problem by fixing cyclic orders at each infrastructure element. Although the computational complexity remains unchanged, the mixed-integer programming model then becomes much smaller. Furthermore, we also discuss how to find a minimal subset of infrastructure elements whose cyclic order already prescribes the order for the remaining parts of the network, and how cyclic order information can be modeled in a mixed-integer programming context. In practice, we evaluate the impact of cyclic orders on a real-world instance on the S-Bahn Berlin network, which turns out to be computationally fruitful. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2023.7 VL - 115 SP - 7:1 EP - 7:18 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Masing, Berenike A1 - Lindner, Niels A1 - Liebchen, Christian T1 - Integrating Line Planning for Construction Sites into Periodic Timetabling via Track Choice T2 - 23rd Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (ATMOS 2023) N2 - We consider maintenance sites for urban rail systems, where unavailable tracks typically require changes to the regular timetable, and often even to the line plan. In this paper, we present an integrated mixed-integer linear optimization model to compute an optimal line plan that makes best use of the available tracks, together with a periodic timetable, including its detailed routing on the tracks within the stations. The key component is a flexible, turn-sensitive event-activity network that allows to integrate line planning and train routing using a track choice extension of the Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP). Major goals are to maintain as much of the regular service as possible, and to keep the necessary changes rather local. Moreover, we present computational results on real construction site scenarios on the S-Bahn Berlin network. We demonstrate that this integrated problem is indeed solvable on practically relevant instances. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2023.5 VL - 115 SP - 5:1 EP - 5:15 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Masing, Berenike ED - Trautmann, Norbert ED - Drägi, Mario T1 - Optimal Line Planning in the Parametric City T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2021. OR 2021. N2 - We formulate the line planning problem in public transport as a mixed integer linear program (MILP), which selects both passenger and vehicle routes, such that travel demands are met with respect to minimized travel times for both operators and users. We apply MILP to the Parametric City, a generic city model developed by Fielbaum et al. [2]. While the infrastructure graph and demand are entirely rotation symmetric, asymmetric optimal line plans can occur. Using group theory, we analyze the properties of symmetric solutions and introduce a symmetry gap to measure their deviation of the optimum. We also develop a 1+1+2√g-approximation algorithm, depending only on the cost related parameter g. Supported by computational experiments, we conclude that in practice symmetric line plans provide good solutions for the line planning problem in the Parametric City. Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-3-031-08623-6 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08623-6_7 SP - 39 EP - 44 PB - Springer, Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Lindner, Niels A1 - van Lieshout, Rolf T1 - Benders Decomposition for the Periodic Event Scheduling Problem T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2021 N2 - The Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP) is the central mathematical model behind the optimization of periodic timetables in public transport. We apply Benders decomposition to the incidence-based MIP formulation of PESP. The resulting formulation exhibits particularly nice features: The subproblem is a minimum cost network flow problem, and feasibility cuts are equivalent to the well-known cycle inequalities by Odijk. We integrate the Benders approach into a branch-and-cut framework, and assess the performance of this method on instances derived from the benchmarking library PESPlib. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08623-6_43 SP - 289 EP - 294 PB - Springer International Publishing CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Löbel, Fabian A1 - Lindner, Niels A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf ED - Neufeld, Janis S. ED - Buscher, Udo ED - Lasch, Rainer ED - Möst, Dominik ED - Schönberger, Jörn T1 - The Restricted Modulo Network Simplex Method for Integrated Periodic Timetabling and Passenger Routing T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2019 N2 - The Periodic Event Scheduling Problem is a well-studied NP-hard problem with applications in public transportation to find good periodic timetables. Among the most powerful heuristics to solve the periodic timetabling problem is the modulo network simplex method. In this paper, we consider the more difficult version with integrated passenger routing and propose a refined integrated variant to solve this problem on real-world-based instances. Y1 - 2020 SN - 978-3-030-48438-5 U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48439-2_92 SP - 757 EP - 763 PB - Springer International Publishing CY - Cham ER - TY - GEN ED - D'Emidio, Mattia ED - Lindner, Niels T1 - 22nd Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (ATMOS 2022) N2 - OASIcs, Volume 106, ATMOS 2022, Complete Volume Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-3-95977-259-4 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2022 VL - 106 PB - Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Prause, Felix A1 - Borndörfer, Ralf T1 - A Bayesian Rolling Horizon Approach for Rolling Stock Rotation Planning with Predictive Maintenance T2 - 24th Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (ATMOS 2024) N2 - We consider the rolling stock rotation planning problem with predictive maintenance (RSRP-PdM), where a timetable given by a set of trips must be operated by a fleet of vehicles. Here, the health states of the vehicles are assumed to be random variables, and their maintenance schedule should be planned based on their predicted failure probabilities. Utilizing the Bayesian update step of the Kalman filter, we develop a rolling horizon approach for RSRP-PdM, in which the predicted health state distributions are updated as new data become available. This approach reduces the uncertainty of the health states and thus improves the decision-making basis for maintenance planning. To solve the instances, we employ a local neighborhood search, which is a modification of a heuristic for RSRP-PdM, and demonstrate its effectiveness. Using this solution algorithm, the presented approach is compared with the results of common maintenance strategies on test instances derived from real-world timetables. The obtained results show the benefits of the rolling horizon approach. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2024.13 VL - 123 SP - 13:1 EP - 13:19 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bortoletto, Enrico A1 - Lindner, Niels ED - Voigt, Guido ED - Fliedner, Malte ED - Haase, Knut ED - Brüggemann, Wolfgang ED - Hoberg, Kai ED - Meissner, Jörn T1 - Scaling and Rounding Periodic Event Scheduling Instances to Different Period Times T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2023 N2 - The Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP) is a notoriously hard combinatorial optimization problem, essential for the design of periodic timetables in public transportation. The coefficients of the integer variables in the standard mixed integer linear programming formulations of PESP are the period time, e.g., 60 for a horizon of one hour with a resolution of one minute. In many application scenarios, lines with different frequencies have to be scheduled, leading to period times with many divisors. It then seems natural to consider derived instances, where the period time is a divisor of the original one, thereby smaller, and bounds are scaled and rounded accordingly. To this end, we identify two rounding schemes: wide and tight. We then discuss the approximation performance of both strategies, in theory and practice. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58405-3_51 SP - 397 EP - 402 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ebert, Patricia A1 - Masing, Berenike A1 - Lindner, Niels A1 - Gleixner, Ambros T1 - Sorting Criteria for Line-based Periodic Timetabling Heuristics T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2024. OR 2024 N2 - It is well-known that optimal solutions are notoriously hard to find for the Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP), which is the standard mathematical formulation to optimize periodic timetables in public transport. We consider a class of incremental heuristics that have been demonstrated to be effective by Lindner and Liebchen (2023), however, for only one fixed sorting strategy of lines along which a solution is constructed. Thus, in this paper, we examine a variety of sortings based on the number, weight, weighted span, and lower bound of arcs, and test for each setting various combinations of the driving, dwelling, and transfer arcs of lines. Additionally, we assess the impact on the incremental extension of the event-activity network by minimizing resp. maximizing a connectivity measure between subsets of lines. We compare our 27 sortings on the railway instances of the benchmarking library PESPlib within the ConcurrentPESP solver framework. We are able to find five new incumbent solutions, resulting in improvements of up to 2%. Y1 - 2025 SP - 348 EP - 354 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Franke, Paula A1 - Hamacher, Kay A1 - Manns, Paul T1 - Minimizing and Maximizing the Shannon Entropy for Fixed Marginals T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2025 N2 - The mutual information (MI) between two random variables is an important correlation measure in data analysis. The Shannon entropy of a joint probability distri- bution is the variable part under fixed marginals. We aim to minimize and maximize it to obtain the largest and smallest MI possible in this case, leading to a scaled MI ratio for better comparability. We present algorithmic approaches and optimal solutions for a set of problem instances based on data from molecular evolution. We show that this allows us to construct a sensible, systematic correction to raw MI values. Y1 - 2026 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Riccardi, Gabor A1 - Lindner, Niels T1 - On The Minimum-Weight Forward (Weakly) Fundamental Cycle Basis Problem in Directed Graphs T2 - International Network Optimization Conference 2026 (INOC 2026) N2 - The cycle space of a directed graph is generated by a cycle basis, where, in general, cycles are allowed to have both forward and backward arcs. In a forward cycle, all arcs have to follow the given direction. We study the existence, structure, and computational complexity of minimum-weight forward cycle bases in directed graphs. We give a complete structural characterization of digraphs that admit weakly fundamental (and hence integral) forward cycle bases, showing that this holds if and only if every block is either strongly connected or a single arc. We further provide an easily verifiable characterization of when a strongly connected digraph admits a forward fundamental cycle basis, proving that such a basis exists if and only if the set of directed cycles has cardinality equal to the cycle rank; in this case, the basis is unique and computable in polynomial time, and nonexistence can likewise be certified efficiently. Lastly, we show that while minimum-weight forward fundamental cycle bases can be found in polynomial time whenever they exist, the minimum-weight forward weakly fundamental cycle basis problem is NP-hard via a polynomial-time reduction from the minimum-weight weakly fundamental cycle basis problem on digraphs with metric weights. Y1 - 2026 ER -