12. Train Dispatching

Train rescheduling problems have received significant attention in the operations research community during the past 20–30 years. These are complex problems with many aspects and constraints to consider. This chapter defines the problem and summarizes the variety of model types and solution approaches developed over the years, in order to address and solve the train dispatching problem from the infrastructure manager perspective. Despite all the research efforts, it is, however, only very recently that the railway industry has made significant attempts to explore the large potential in using optimization-based decision-support to facilitate railway traffic disturbance management. This chapter reviews state-of-practice and provides a discussion about the observed slow progress in the application of optimization-based methods in practice. A few successful implementations have been identified, but their performance as well as the lessons learned from the development and implementation of those system are unfortunately only partly available to the research community, or potential industry users.