The poster “Producing cost-effective and robust crew schedules with optimization and stochastic simulation”* will be presented from 18 to 21 May in Budapest, at Europe’s leading conference on transport research and innovation, organized every two years by the European Commission and key professional partners.
The work showcases how SISCOG and NS addressed one of the most inconvenient problems in railroad operations: delays.
The challenge
Delays affect passenger satisfaction and generate additional operational costs. How can their impact on operations be limited?
The approach
One way to mitigate delays is to produce robust crew schedules - schedules that are less prone to delay propagation.
The core idea is to guide the optimizer so that it favours crew connections with different time buffers, depending on the likelihood of train delays on those connections.
The outcome
Experiments using real-world NS train driver/engineer problem instances show that it is possible to produce schedules that are more cost-effective while maintaining the same level of robustness as current NS practices.
Want to know more?
- Visit TRA 2026 and join Ricardo Saldanha, Luis Albino and Camiel Simons.
- Contact SISCOG - sales@siscog.pt
* authors: Luís Albino (SISCOG), Rafael Mendes Borges (NS), Ricardo L. Saldanha (SISCOG), Camiel Simons (NS)