Stability assessment of railway trackwork scheduling in Sweden

Abstract

Ensuring the reliability of railway transportation is heavily dependent on the quality of its infrastructure. In this regard, renewal and maintenance of the railway track infrastructure, referred to as trackwork, play a vital role. However, trackwork execution requires temporary capacity restrictions for train traffic. Therefore, harmonising the train and maintenance schedules is critical but challenging to accomplish when one is frequently changing. This paper explores and models the nature of trackwork schedule instability at the tactical level of the scheduling process. We analyse data from one year of trackwork rolling horizon plans, focusing on weekly changes at eight key trackwork locations across Sweden’s railway network. Our study considers various factors that may affect schedule stability, such as track type, location, time of day, train traffic intensity, and the type of prevailing traffic. We find that schedule instability increases as the rolling horizon plan approaches its end. The regression analysis reveals that the most significant predictors of changes in trackwork schedules include previous changes, track type (single vs. double), work location (at station vs. between stations), and the timing of trackwork (daytime vs. nighttime and month). These provide insights to trackwork planners in making informed and proactive decisions about trackwork timeslot allocation.