A simulation model for train movements in the rail network Available to Purchase

In rail transportation, the process of finding the optimal movement of freight goods is considered a tactical level of rail planning. Solving this problem requires one simultaneously to address the railroad blocking problem and the train dispatching problem, which is difficult. Additionally, when these problems are represented by mathematical relations, application of the solution leads to unexpected results in the real world. The main objective of this research was to build a simulation environment to represent the key behaviours of typical and applicable constraints of a railway system. This environment provides a tool with which to evaluate different decisions among a list of candidate decisions associated with blocking and dispatching problems. Since the movement of freight trains involves conflicting measures of effectiveness that need to be optimised at the same time, comparisons among decisions must be made in the presence of trade-offs between the different measures. The proposed simulation environment was used to analyse train movement in a case study of the Iranian rail network.