In the rail transport area, line planning is the widely studied problem of designing line plans for a public transportation system that meet given passenger demands. After the line planning problem is solved, times can be assigned to departures and arrivals of periodic train trips to obtain an operational timetable.
But how should trains that arrive at a railway station in constant intervals be scheduled so that the safety interval between two trains is maximum? For this train scheduling (timetabling) problem it is crucial to introduce a feasibility check within the line planning solving process. This feasibility check may be achieved from solving what is called the train frequency compatibility (TFC) problem. The TFC problem tries to explain/solve how should trains from different lines that are passing on a same section of network, in the same direction and in regular intervals per line, be planned in such a way that ensures that the inter train minimum safety time is always respected by maximizing the minimum interval between regular patterns.
SISCOG, as a company constantly looking for new and the most optimized solutions, is a proud co-author of the paper entitled “The train frequency compatibility problem” that addresses such a challenge.
This paper was co-written with “Departamento de Matemática” and “Centro de Matemática e Aplicações (CMA)” from “Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa”, and “Centro de Estudos Florestais (CEF)” from “Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa”.