SMARTIES: Scheduling Methods for Automated Railway Timetabling Improving the Efficiency of Smartrail

Future demand in public transport is prognosticated to increase significantly. To manage the additional demand in transportation the Swiss Federal Railway SBB has launched the SmartRail 4.0 programme. In the context of SmartRail 4.0 the capacity of the Swiss railway network shall be increased by up to 30%. Changes in the infrastructure of the network to increase its capacity are generally very expensive and often strongly limited in possibilities. SmartRail 4.0 targets to increase the capacity by means of new technologies. New tracking technologies allow to densify the traffic on the network by precise localization of all trains on the railway network. Densification of the traffic demands accurate and efficient scheduling of all trains over the entire network. In context of this project, mathematical techniques are developed to tackle the very complex problem of railway traffic scheduling. A major challenge in the scheduling of the Swiss railway traffic is the size and complexity of the network in combination with a large amount of traffic. New methodologies need to be developed to cope with networks of such complexity and handle the large demand of traffic. ETH Zurich is working together with SBB to develop new algorithmic solutions to achieve the ambitious goals of SmartRail 4.0 and shape the public transport of tomorrow in Switzerland.

Lead

Prof. Dr. Francesco Corman, Florin Leutwiler

Financing

SBB CFF FFS

Project timeframe

August 2018 – August 2022