A general metro timetable rescheduling approach for the minimisation of the capacity loss after random line disruption

Abstract

This study proposes a generic metro timetable rescheduling method for the minimization of the capacity loss that integrates spatial and temporal information on random line disruptions and time-varying characteristics of passenger flows. The proposed emergency operating rules can be immediately deployed after a random disruption using one crossover track. The spatiotemporal information of a disruption and the current state of the line are integrated into a metro disruption management (MDM) model, which considers deviated from the original schedule and the number of stranded passengers as optimization objectives. An iterative meta-heuristic for the general metro rescheduling (IMH-GMR) algorithm is developed to flexibly classify an accident and determine rescheduling solutions for the MDM model within an effective running time (e.g., 15-60 sec). Test results show that the line capacity loss is significantly reduced (94.95%) compared with the total loss caused by the accident disposal in the test scenario.

KEYWORDS:

• Metro timetable rescheduling
• random disruption
• line capacity loss
• iterative meta-heuristic

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Xi’an Rail Transit Group Co., Ltd. for the station ridership data.

Author contributions

The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: study conception and design: S. Zhang, Y. Cheng; data collection: S. Zhang, K. Chen; analysis and interpretation of results: S. Zhang, Y. Cheng; draft manuscript preparation: S. Zhang, Y. Cheng, K. Chen, C. Ma, J. Wei, X. Hu. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).