Robust and optimized urban rail timetabling using a marshaling plan and skip-stop operation

Abstract

Urban rail transit (URT) demand often exhibits tidal or centripetal shapes during peak/off-peak hours. Inefficiency occurs when the supply of service is not adjusted to the fluctuating demand. This optimization can be realized by redesigning the URT timetables and/or through operational strategies. Certainly, implementation of the optimal/best-adjusted timetables must be feasible in order to accommodate efficient operations planning. This work develops a new methodology to derive an optimal timetabling design procedure for multiphase demands on a bi-directional URT line. It consists of three operational policies: marshaling, skip-stop operation, and robustness. The order of service is determined by the departure times. Following these considerations, this work develops a hybrid model formulated as a mixed-integer programming framework. The case study demonstrates the ability of the modeling framework to assess integrated effects, guarantee its robustness and to bring about 13% saving of the total cost associated with passengers, operations and reliability.

KEYWORDS:

• Robust
• timetabling
• marshaling
• skip-stop operation
• urban rail transit

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by Humanity and Social Science Youth Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (19YJCZH002), National Natural Science Foundation of China (71971019), and National Key Research and Development Plan (2018YFB1201402).