Efficiency and Robustness in Railway Operations

Passenger railway transport is an effective means of providing high capacity
transport that is energy efficient and has low emissions. As the population of
Denmark grows and there is an increased request for mobility, there is a need
for railway services offering greater capacity and more reliability. Offering
these services presents a challenging sequence of planning problems for
operators. These range from problems considered on a daily basis to planning
for years in the future, with different problems interacting and influencing
each other.
Operations research methods can be used to effectively model, investigate,
and solve railway planning problems. Despite advances in computational
power these large problems are still challenging to solve, especially as more
modelling detail is sought. Within a Danish context this thesis seeks to apply
operations research methods to different planning problems beyond past
approaches, and where applicable, investigate solution methods that place
more focus on the passenger and passenger experience. To cater to the growing
demand for rail transport, and compete with different modes of transport,
Danish railway operators must offer a consistent, reliable service, that is well
planned from both a passenger and operator perspective. This thesis therefore
considers different planning problems within passenger railway considering
robustness of the system, and efficiency and optimality from the point of view
of the passenger or operator.
The contributions of the thesis are in the investigation of robustness in railway,
the application of optimization to a number of railway planning problems, and
a detailed consideration of the specific concerns of Danish railway services.
These contributions are summarised in the introductory chapter, and in the
latter part of the thesis are given in each chapter.