Integrated condition-based track maintenance planning and crew scheduling of railway networks

Abstract

We develop a multi-level decision making approach for optimal condition-based maintenance planning of a railway network divided into a large number of sections with independent stochastic deterioration dynamics. At higher level, a chance-constrained Model Predictive Control (MPC) controller determines the long-term section-wise maintenance plan, minimizing condition deterioration and maintenance costs for a finite planning horizon, while ensuring that the deterioration level of each section stays below the maintenance threshold with a given probabilistic guarantee in the presence of parameter uncertainty. The resulting large MPC optimization problem containing both continuous and discrete decision variables is solved using Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition to improve the scalability of the proposed approach. At a lower level, the optimal short-term scheduling of the maintenance interventions suggested by the high-level controller and the optimal routing of the corresponding maintenance crew is formulated as a capacitated arc routing problem, which is solved exactly by transforming it into a node routing problem. The proposed approach is illustrated by a numerical case study on the optimal treatment of squats of a regional Dutch railway network. Simulation results show that the proposed approach is robust, non-conservative, and scalable.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Team DeSchutterRailway EngineeringDelft Center for Systems and Contro