A robust-planning methodology for railway rolling-stock

This paper deals with an investigation of combinatorial and robust optimization models to solve rolling-stock planning problems for passenger trains. Here robustness means that rolling-stock can better deal with some disruptions of the railway system. The proposed method is based on optimization and simulation techniques to handle the problem with imperfect information on data. The goal of the optimization module is to capture the combinatorial complexity, whereas simulation is used to evaluate and validate solution quality. The first results obtained on regional and intercity lines are promising.