IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v44y2014i6p567-578.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Locomotive Planning at Norfolk Southern: An Optimizing Simulator Using Approximate Dynamic Programming

Author

Listed:
  • Warren B. Powell

    (Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544)

  • Belgacem Bouzaiene-Ayari

    (Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544)

  • Coleman Lawrence

    (Norfolk Southern Corporation, Atlanta, Georgia 30309)

  • Clark Cheng

    (Norfolk Southern Corporation, Atlanta, Georgia 30309)

  • Sourav Das

    (Norfolk Southern Corporation, Atlanta, Georgia 30309)

  • Ricardo Fiorillo

    (Norfolk Southern Corporation, Atlanta, Georgia 30309)

Abstract

For decades, locomotive planning has been approached using the classical tools of mathematical programming; the result has been very large-scale integer programming models that are beyond the capabilities of modern solvers but still require a host of simplifying assumptions that limit their use for analyzing important planning problems. The primary interest of Norfolk Southern was in developing a model that could assist it with fleet sizing. However, the cumulative effect of the simplifications required to produce a practical integer programming formulation resulted in models that underestimated the required fleet. We use the modeling and algorithmic framework of approximate dynamic programming, which uses an intuitive balance of simulation and optimization with feedback learning, to produce a highly detailed model that calibrates accurately against historical metrics. The result was a model that can be used to plan fleet size and mix, be sensitive to a wide range of operating parameters, and adapt to many scenarios.

Suggested Citation

  • Warren B. Powell & Belgacem Bouzaiene-Ayari & Coleman Lawrence & Clark Cheng & Sourav Das & Ricardo Fiorillo, 2014. "Locomotive Planning at Norfolk Southern: An Optimizing Simulator Using Approximate Dynamic Programming," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 44(6), pages 567-578, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:44:y:2014:i:6:p:567-578
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.2014.0741
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.2014.0741
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.2014.0741?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean-François Cordeau & François Soumis & Jacques Desrosiers, 2000. "A Benders Decomposition Approach for the Locomotive and Car Assignment Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(2), pages 133-149, May.
    2. Balachandran Vaidyanathan & Ravindra K. Ahuja & James B. Orlin, 2008. "The Locomotive Routing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(4), pages 492-507, November.
    3. Koorush Ziarati & François Soumis & Jacques Desrosiers & Marius M. Solomon, 1999. "A Branch-First, Cut-Second Approach for Locomotive Assignment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(8), pages 1156-1168, August.
    4. Ziarati, Koorush & Soumis, Francois & Desrosiers, Jacques & Gelinas, Sylvie & Saintonge, Andre, 1997. "Locomotive assignment with heterogeneous consists at CN North America," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 281-292, March.
    5. Jean-François Cordeau & François Soumis & Jacques Desrosiers, 2001. "Simultaneous Assignment of Locomotives and Cars to Passenger Trains," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 531-548, August.
    6. Vaidyanathan, Balachandran & Ahuja, Ravindra K. & Liu, Jian & Shughart, Larry A., 2008. "Real-life locomotive planning: New formulations and computational results," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 147-168, February.
    7. Ravindra K. Ahuja & Jian Liu & James B. Orlin & Dushyant Sharma & Larry A. Shughart, 2005. "Solving Real-Life Locomotive-Scheduling Problems," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(4), pages 503-517, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Camilo Ortiz-Astorquiza & Jean-François Cordeau & Emma Frejinger, 2021. "The Locomotive Assignment Problem with Distributed Power at the Canadian National Railway Company," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(2), pages 510-531, March.
    2. Rempel, M. & Cai, J., 2021. "A review of approximate dynamic programming applications within military operations research," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 8(C).
    3. Michael F. Gorman & John-Paul Clarke & Amir Hossein Gharehgozli & Michael Hewitt & René de Koster & Debjit Roy, 2014. "State of the Practice: A Review of the Application of OR/MS in Freight Transportation," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 44(6), pages 535-554, December.
    4. Guo, Peijun, 2022. "Dynamic focus programming: A new approach to sequential decision problems under uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 303(1), pages 328-336.
    5. Geursen, Izaak L. & Santos, Bruno F. & Yorke-Smith, Neil, 2023. "Fleet planning under demand and fuel price uncertainty using actor–critic reinforcement learning," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    6. Piu, F. & Prem Kumar, V. & Bierlaire, M. & Speranza, M.G., 2015. "Introducing a preliminary consists selection in the locomotive assignment problem," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 217-237.
    7. Prashant Premkumar & P. N. Ram Kumar, 2019. "Literature Review of Locomotive Assignment Problem from Service Operations Perspective: The Case of Indian Railways," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 8(1), pages 74-86, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Belgacem Bouzaiene-Ayari & Clark Cheng & Sourav Das & Ricardo Fiorillo & Warren B. Powell, 2016. "From Single Commodity to Multiattribute Models for Locomotive Optimization: A Comparison of Optimal Integer Programming and Approximate Dynamic Programming," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(2), pages 366-389, May.
    2. Camilo Ortiz-Astorquiza & Jean-François Cordeau & Emma Frejinger, 2021. "The Locomotive Assignment Problem with Distributed Power at the Canadian National Railway Company," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(2), pages 510-531, March.
    3. Xu, Xiaoming & Li, Chung-Lun & Xu, Zhou, 2018. "Integrated train timetabling and locomotive assignment," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 117(PA), pages 573-593.
    4. Prashant Premkumar & P. N. Ram Kumar, 2019. "Literature Review of Locomotive Assignment Problem from Service Operations Perspective: The Case of Indian Railways," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 8(1), pages 74-86, January.
    5. Petr KOZLOV & Sergey VAKULENKO & Nikolay TUSHIN & Elena TIMUKHINA, 2017. "Model To Calculate The Optimal Mode Of Train Locomotives Turnover," Transport Problems, Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Transport, vol. 12(3), pages 125-133, September.
    6. Prashant Premkumar & P. N. Ram Kumar, 2022. "Locomotive assignment problem: integrating the strategic, tactical and operational level aspects," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 315(2), pages 867-898, August.
    7. Frisch, Sarah & Hungerländer, Philipp & Jellen, Anna & Primas, Bernhard & Steininger, Sebastian & Weinberger, Dominic, 2021. "Solving a real-world Locomotive Scheduling Problem with Maintenance Constraints," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 386-409.
    8. Piu, F. & Prem Kumar, V. & Bierlaire, M. & Speranza, M.G., 2015. "Introducing a preliminary consists selection in the locomotive assignment problem," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 217-237.
    9. Petr KOZLOV & Elena TIMUKHINA & Nikolay TUSHIN, 2018. "Coordination Of Locomotives Turnover And Servicing Modes," Transport Problems, Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Transport, vol. 13(1), pages 19-26, March.
    10. Scheffler, Martin & Neufeld, Janis S. & Hölscher, Michael, 2020. "An MIP-based heuristic solution approach for the locomotive assignment problem focussing on (dis-)connecting processes," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 64-80.
    11. Nourbakhsh, Seyed Mohammad & Ouyang, Yanfeng, 2010. "Optimal fueling strategies for locomotive fleets in railroad networks," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(8-9), pages 1104-1114, September.
    12. Canca, David & Barrena, Eva, 2018. "The integrated rolling stock circulation and depot location problem in railway rapid transit systems," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 115-138.
    13. Haahr, J.T. & Wagenaar, J.C. & Veelenturf, L.P. & Kroon, L.G., 2015. "A Comparison of Two Exact Methods for Passenger Railway Rolling Stock (Re)Scheduling," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2015-007-LIS, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    14. Philimon Nyamugure & Siphosenkosi Dube Swene & Edward T. Chiyaka & Farikayi K. Mutasa, 2014. "Train Schedule Optimization: A Case Study of the National Railways of Zimbabwe," International Journal of Management Sciences, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 3(1), pages 1-20.
    15. Lin, Zhiyuan & Kwan, Raymond S.K., 2016. "A branch-and-price approach for solving the train unit scheduling problem," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 97-120.
    16. Gao, Yuan & Schmidt, Marie & Yang, Lixing & Gao, Ziyou, 2020. "A branch-and-price approach for trip sequence planning of high-speed train units," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    17. Vaidyanathan, Balachandran & Ahuja, Ravindra K. & Liu, Jian & Shughart, Larry A., 2008. "Real-life locomotive planning: New formulations and computational results," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 147-168, February.
    18. Peng Zhao & Yawei Li & Baoming Han & Ruixia Yang & Zhiping Liu, 2022. "Integrated Optimization of Rolling Stock Scheduling and Flexible Train Formation Based on Passenger Demand for an Intercity High-Speed Railway," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-22, May.
    19. Balachandran Vaidyanathan & Ravindra K. Ahuja & James B. Orlin, 2008. "The Locomotive Routing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(4), pages 492-507, November.
    20. Zhong, Qingwei & Lusby, Richard M. & Larsen, Jesper & Zhang, Yongxiang & Peng, Qiyuan, 2019. "Rolling stock scheduling with maintenance requirements at the Chinese High-Speed Railway," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 24-44.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:44:y:2014:i:6:p:567-578. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.