Conference article

The expansion of the scale of high-speed railway networks and the growth of passenger demand imply a high frequency of high-speed trains in China, i.e. higher railway capacity utilization. Based on given infrastructures and train line plans, there are some timetabling strategies which affect the capacity utilization, e.g. changing train departure sequence at origin stations, overtakings between trains, and adding new train stop at stations. Nowadays, managers of high-speed railway in China are eager to find out that what kind of impact these strategies have on the capacity utilization. In this study, new variables of train stops and constraints of overtakings are proposed with an extended cyclic timetabling model based on the periodic event scheduling problem (PESP). Minimum cycle time, train travel time and the total number of train stops are calculated as objectives to measure the differences between the strategies. The effectiveness of the three timetabling strategies are compared and presented by a series of experiments based on one real-world rail line in China. According to our results, with flexible train departure sequence at the origin stations and train overtakings, the possibility of acquiring good capacity utilization can be higher, but too many overtakings will have negative effect on the quality of timetable. The effectiveness of adding new stops on the capacity utilization depends on the ways of adding stops, i.e. which train is allowed to be added new stops and which stations can be selected to stop at.

Cyclic timetabling, Capacity utilization, Train sequence, Train stop, Overtaking