A Robust Optimization Model for Multi-Period Railway Network Design Problem Considering Economic Aspects and Environmental Impact

Abstract

The railway network design problem is one of the critical issues in the transportation sector due to its significance and variety of necessary applications. The major issue of this field relates to the decision of whether to increase the railways’ capacity or construct a new route to meet demand. Although the budget is a great concern of the managers for making such a decision, environmental factors should be necessarily included in the decision-making process. Therefore, this research proposes a novel robust bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model to simultaneously minimize the total cost and environmental impact under uncertain conditions and within a given time horizon. The proposed problem addresses strategic and operational decisions through railway project selection and product flow determination. To deal with the bi-objectiveness of the model and tackle the complexity of the problem, a nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is employed. The proposed NSGA-II could reach near-optimal Pareto solutions in a reasonable solution time and showed a reliable performance for being employed in large-sized instances. It also indicates that the proposed NSGA-II can be utilized for solving large-sized samples in a very short time.

A Novel Decision-Making Framework to Evaluate Rail Transport Development Projects Considering Sustainability under Uncertainty

“…Due to the increasing population and the growing needs of cities, the development of transportation infrastructure in countries has been considered as a critical issue [2,3]. The railway network design problem is one of the critical issues in the transportation sector due to its significance and variety of necessary applications [4]. Many extensive projects are often potentially defined by the limitations of various financial, human, and resource constraints, which do not allow all projects to be implemented at the same time.…”

“…Projects should be evaluated according to various criteria, and paying attention to specific financial, time, human, and other aspects increases the error of choosing the optimal project [7]. In different studies, various criteria are considered in the evaluation of projects, but in today's world, the concept of sustainability is considered as a vital and key factor in many fields and industries [4,8]. Sustainability means the ability to maintain balance and continuity in the face of environmental, economic and social challenges, needs, and limitations [9,10].…”