A Line Planning Approach for High‐Speed Rail Networks with Time‐Dependent Demand and Capacity Constraints

Abstract

In high-speed rail networks, trains are operated with high speeds and high frequencies, which can satisfy passenger demand with different expected departure times. Given time-dependent demand, this paper proposes a line planning approach with capacity constraints for high-speed rail networks. In this paper, a bilevel optimization model is formulated and the constraints include track section capacity per unit time, train seat capacity, and the gap between the number of starting trains and that of ending trains at a station. In the upper level, the objective is to minimize train operational cost and passenger travel cost, and the decision variables include the line of each train, carriage composition of each train, train stop patterns, train start times, and train arrival and departure times at stops in the line plan. In the lower level, a schedule-based passenger assignment method, which assigns time-varying demand on trains with seat capacity constraints by simulating the ticket-booking process, is used to evaluate the line plan obtained in the upper level. A simulated annealing algorithm is developed to solve the model in which some strategies are designed to search for neighborhood solutions, including reducing train carriages, deleting trains, adding trains, increasing train carriages, and adjusting train start times. Finally, an application to the Chinese high-speed rail network is presented. The numerical results show that (i) the average time deviations between the expected departure times and the actual boarding times of passengers are within 30 min, (ii) the unserved passengers are less than 200, and (iii) the average load factors of trains are about 70%. Hence, line plan solutions meet time-dependent demand well and satisfy the capacity constraints for high-speed rail networks.

Integrated Optimization of Line Planning, Timetabling and Rolling Stock Allocation for Urban Railway Lines

“…For example, Wang, Tang, Ning, Meng [2] proposes three objectives including minimizing the number of rolling stock and headway time variations. In a different way, Su, Tao, Hu [29] reduces train operational costs by considering engine time of rolling stock. This research chooses the latter as another objective, namely the cost related to travel time of service trips.…”

Comprehensive Evaluation of Operating Speeds for High-Speed Railway: A Case Study of China High-Speed Railway

“…On the corridor with various parallel transport modes, the main factors that affect the passenger choice include the speed, security, punctuality, economic, comfortable, and convenient [20], besides the purchasing power of passenger and travel purpose. HST is a closer substitute to the plane than the conventional train.…”

Optimal Differential Pricing for Intercity High-Speed Railway Services with Time-Dependent Demand and Passenger Choice Behaviors under Capacity Constraints

“…Actually, time-dependent demand had already been studied in some passenger transportation organization optimization problems. For example, time-dependent demand was considered in the train timetable optimization by Kaspi and Raviv [3] and Niu et al [4] and also used in the line planning problem by Su et al [5]. Xu et al [6] designed passenger assignment methods for high-speed railways based on time-dependent demand.…”

“…e time-dependent demand has been studied by various researchers [3][4][5][6], and a train timetable or line planning has been evaluated and optimized based on the passenger choice behaviors with different departure times. However, time-dependent demand has been underresearched in the optimal pricing studies of intercity highspeed railways.…”