RailSanya 2027
RailSanya 2027
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Mini Course

Pre-conference mini course programme

Explore the mini courses

Discover the course topics, abstracts and lecturers. Further course details will be added as they become available.

Schedule to be announced

  1. Mini course 01

    Railway station operations

    2 lecturers

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  2. Mini course 02

    Real-time train rescheduling

    1 lecturer

    View course
  3. Mini course 03

    Optimization for people in railways

    1 lecturer

    View course

  4. Mini course 04

    To be announced

Mini course 01

Railway Station Operations: Angles and Opportunities for Research

An introduction to the challenges of station operations, approaches to addressing them, and research opportunities in station planning and management.

Abstract

Stations are key nodes of railway networks and serve passengers, who are ultimate customers of rail transport systems. Whilst passengers’ experiences at stations are as important as their on-board experiences, operations at stations are multi-dimensional and involve coordination amongst a wide range of actors. This mini lecture introduces key challenges associated with station operations and discusses selected approaches addressing them. It aims to highlight research needs and opportunities for those who are interested in stations and their planning and management.

Lecturers

Meet the people teaching this course.

Taku Fujiyama

Taku Fujiyama

Professor

University College London

Taku Fujiyama is a Professor at University College London. He has professional experience as a railway station planner and engineer at East Japan Railway, before embarking on an academic career focused on pedestrians/passengers and their journeys on rail and public transport systems.

Natchaya Tortainchai

Natchaya Tortainchai

Lecturer

Mahidol University

Natchaya Tortainchai is a Lecturer in the Cluster of Logistics and Rail Engineering at Mahidol University. Her research focuses on railway operations, passenger crowd management, and station dwell-time, drawing on research experience with metro networks in Asia and Europe.

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Mini course 02

A state-of-the-art train rescheduling system based on alternative graph models and algorithms

A practical look at alternative graph models, real-time scheduling and routing algorithms, and the AGLIBRARY optimization system for supporting train dispatchers.

Abstract

This talk reports on the practical applicability of published techniques for real-time train scheduling. I will start with a brief description of the mathematical models, with consideration of railway business rules and objectives, and advanced scheduling plus routing algorithms based on alternative graphs. I will then focus on the optimization system AGLIBRARY that manages trains at the microscopic level of block sections and block signals and at a precision of seconds. The system outcome is a detailed conflict-free train schedule, being able to avoid deadlocks while minimizing train delays. Experiments on British and Dutch test cases demonstrate that AGLIBRARY can quickly compute near-optimal solutions. The final goal is the development of an advanced decision support system for aiding dispatchers in their work and for guiding them toward near-optimal real-time train re-timing, re-ordering and re-routing decisions.

Lecturer

Meet the people teaching this course.

Andrea D’Ariano

Andrea D’Ariano

Full Professor

Roma Tre University

Andrea D’Ariano is Full Professor at Roma Tre University, Department of Civil, Computer Science and Aeronautical Technologies Engineering. He got the Italian Full Professor Scientific Habilitation in Operations Research and Transportation Science.

His research publications were acknowledged by Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM) Society as Outstanding Professor Award; Airline Group of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (AGIFORS), INFORMS Aviation Applications Section, INFORMS Railway Applications Section, International Association of Railway Operations Research (IAROR), Netherlands Research School on Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics (TRAIL) as best scientific papers; by IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society as best PhD thesis; by Italian Operations Research Society (AIRO) as best Master thesis.

He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed international publications (including top-cited papers in high-impact journals). He served as Editor and/or Reviewer for international journals and as External Expert and Rapporteur for the European Commission and numerous National Foundations.

Andrea D’Ariano is listed in the 2023 ranking of the top 2% of the world’s best scientists, compiled by Stanford University. DOI:10.17632/btchxktzyw.6

Click here to view the CV

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Mini course 03

Optimization for People in Railways

Optimization of periodic railway timetables and crew rosters, with a focus on passenger needs, staff well-being and successful implementation in practice.

Abstract

We focus on two groups of people who can benefit directly from good railway planning. First, passengers benefit from attractive scheduled services resulting from the service design process. Second, operational staff, such as train drivers and conductors, are directly affected by the quality of crew scheduling and rostering, which can have a substantial impact on their well-being. In this mini-course, we present the classical planning steps involved in periodic railway timetabling and crew rostering. Particular emphasis is placed on the respective requirements of passengers and operational staff. Finally, we discuss aspects of the project processes that, in our experience, have been key to successfully implementing optimization solutions in practice.

Lecturer

Meet the people teaching this course.

Christian Liebchen

Christian Liebchen

Professor of Transportation Planning and Operations

Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau, Germany

Christian Liebchen received his PhD from the Department of Mathematics at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. His dissertation, entitled "Periodic Timetable Optimization in Public Transport", received the 2006 INFORMS Transportation Science & Logistics Dissertation Prize.

After seven years at German Rail, first in its freight division and later at its Berlin commuter rail subsidiary, S-Bahn Berlin, he became Professor of Transportation Planning and Operations at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau, Germany. There, he resumed his research on periodic timetables and received several best paper awards (ATMOS, ICROMA).

Over the past five years, he has developed several mathematical optimization models for crew rostering at S-Bahn Berlin GmbH. One is used daily, while others are used on an annual basis.

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