Real-time train rescheduling in junction areas

On main line railways, sections with junctions are usually heavily used because of the converging flows of trains from different origins. In the event of disturbances, even a minor delay to one train can cause long consequential delays for following trains, because of conflicts in the junction areas and because, normally, less recovery time and margin time are allocated where trains travel through bottleneck sections. Depending on the performance regime, train rescheduling can be an effective method to decrease the overall delay and any penalty payment. The authors of this article propose a decision support methodology for real-time train rescheduling in junction areas, based on a mathematical approach that optimizes an objective function. Their Junction Rescheduling Model (JRM) solves certain types of junction rescheduling problems by using an improved differential evolution algorithm for JRM that achieves near optimal solutions. They also present a statistical evaluation of the algorithm performance compared with the first-come-first-served strategy, based on the Monte-Carlo simulation methodology.