Research on Train Dispatch Optimization and Scheduling Strategy for Railway Freight Network

Abstract

With the continuous and rapid growth of China's railway freight volume, alongside the increasing complexity of modern transportation organization, traditional single-objective-oriented transportation planning methods are becoming increasingly inadequate. Specifically, these conventional approaches can hardly balance the critical trade-offs between minimizing overall transportation costs and maintaining a high service level for customers. To address this pressing industry challenge, this paper constructs a comprehensive bi-objective optimization model tailored for a typical railway freight network. The proposed framework explicitly considers both the minimization of operational transportation costs and the maximization of overall demand satisfaction. Furthermore, the mathematical model fully takes into account a variety of strict operational constraints, such as the total number of available trains, dynamic line capacity limitations, the marshalling capacity of intermediate stations and freight yards, specific operation time windows, and the required minimum service level thresholds. Aiming at the inherent nonlinear and multi-objective characteristics of the formulated model, an advanced genetic algorithm based on the weighted sum strategy is adopted for efficient solving. The fundamental effectiveness of the proposed model and the robust convergence of the applied heuristic algorithm are rigorously verified through extensive numerical simulation experiments. The comprehensive computational results clearly demonstrate that the developed model can effectively reduce daily operation costs while significantly improving the overall demand satisfaction rate. Ultimately, this research provides a highly useful and practical reference for the optimal scheduling and strategic management of complex railway freight systems.