Optimization for Stop Plan of Passenger-Like Container Train with Container Distributions and Train Utilization Rates

Abstract

The railway container transportation is attracting more and more attention in China. In order to improve the service quality, a novel concept of passenger-like container train is proposed, which can reduce the accumulation time of containers at the origin station and increase the train frequency compared with the traditional container through train. With the aim of generating optimal operation strategies for passenger-like container trains, this paper establishes an optimization model for the train stop plan problem, in which the objective is to minimize the total number of stops. In addition, the specific container-to-train distribution and the utilization rate of each individual train are considered. The proposed model is a mixed-integer linear programming one, which can be solved by using the CPLEX solver. Finally, the numerical experiments are performed to test the effectiveness of our model by using a simple railway line and the China Railway Express corridor as examples. The results prove the advantages of our method.