Scheduling freight trains inrail-rail transshipment yards

Transshipment yards, where gantry cranes allow for an ecient transshipment of containersbetween different freight trains, are important entities in modern railway systems andfacilitate the general shift from point-to-point transport to hub-and-spoke railway systems.Modern rail-rail transshipment yards accelerate container handling, so that multiplesmaller trains with equal destination can be consolidated to a reduced number of trainswithout jeopardizing on time deliveries. An important problem continuously arising duringthe daily operations of a transshipment yard is the train scheduling problem, which decideson the succession of trains at the parallel railway tracks. This problem with a special focuson resolving deadlocks and avoiding multiple crane picks per container move is investigatedwithin the paper on hand. A mathematical program along with a complexity proofis provided and exact (Dynamic Programming) and heuristic (Beam Search) proceduresare described....