Kraft, E. R., “A Reservations Based Railway Network Operations Management System: [1997]
Focuses on the process of developing appropriate and achievable delivery appointments using a “bid price” revenue management approach
- Modeled after current motor carrier industry practice, a customized delivery appointment time is developed for each shipment
- Bid prices are developed using a standard subgradient step size procedure to solve a “Train Segment Pricing” problem on a multicommodity space time network. Each shipment is modeled as a separate commodity.
After the service commitment has been made, a capacity constrained “Dynamic Car Scheduling” process manages enroute shipments in a manner consistent with their service commitments.
- A customized dual ascent procedure is used to solve an integer multicommodity network flow problem.
The performance of both algorithms is assessed using a rolling horizon simulation model.