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Crane scheduling in railway yards: an analysis of computational complexity

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  • Konrad Stephan

    (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena)

  • Nils Boysen

    (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena)

Abstract

An efficient container transfer in railway yards is an important matter to increase the attraction of rail-bound freight transport. Therefore, the scheduling of gantry cranes transferring containers between freight trains and trucks or among trains received a lot of attention in the recent years. This paper contributes to this stream of research by investigating the computational complexity of crane scheduling in these yards. Scheduling the transfer of a given set of containers by a single crane equals the (asymmetric) traveling salesman problem in its path-version. In railway yards, however, all container positions are located along parallel lines, i.e., tracks, and we face special distance metrics, so that only specially structured problem instances arise. We classify important problem settings by differentiating the transshipment direction, parking policy, and distance metric. This way, we derive problem variants being solvable to optimality in polynomial time, whereas other cases are shown to be NP-hard.

Suggested Citation

  • Konrad Stephan & Nils Boysen, 2017. "Crane scheduling in railway yards: an analysis of computational complexity," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 20(5), pages 507-526, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jsched:v:20:y:2017:i:5:d:10.1007_s10951-017-0520-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s10951-017-0520-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. José Ángel González & Eva Ponce & Carlos Mataix & Javier Carrasco, 2008. "The Automatic Generation of Transhipment Plans for a Train--Train Terminal: Application to the Spanish--French Border," Transportation Planning and Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 545-567, May.
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    4. G. Dantzig & R. Fulkerson & S. Johnson, 1954. "Solution of a Large-Scale Traveling-Salesman Problem," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 2(4), pages 393-410, November.
    5. Nils Boysen & Joachim Scholl & Konrad Stephan, 2017. "When road trains supply freight trains: scheduling the container loading process by gantry crane between multi-trailer trucks and freight trains," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 39(1), pages 137-164, January.
    6. Boysen, Nils & Fliedner, Malte & Kellner, Michael, 2010. "Determining fixed crane areas in rail-rail transshipment yards," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 1005-1016, November.
    7. Nils Boysen & Florian Jaehn & Erwin Pesch, 2011. "Scheduling Freight Trains in Rail-Rail Transshipment Yards," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(2), pages 199-211, May.
    8. Jean-François Cordeau & Gilbert Laporte, 2007. "The dial-a-ride problem: models and algorithms," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 29-46, September.
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    10. Boysen, Nils & Fliedner, Malte, 2010. "Determining crane areas in intermodal transshipment yards: The yard partition problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 204(2), pages 336-342, July.
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    12. Nils Boysen & Malte Fliedner & Florian Jaehn & Erwin Pesch, 2013. "A Survey on Container Processing in Railway Yards," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(3), pages 312-329, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. David Füßler & Nils Boysen & Konrad Stephan, 2019. "Trolley line picking: storage assignment and order sequencing to increase picking performance," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 41(4), pages 1087-1121, December.
    2. Schulz, Arne & Fliedner, Malte & Fiedrich, Benedikt & Pfeiffer, Christian, 2021. "Levelling crane workload in multi-yard rail-road container terminals," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 293(3), pages 941-954.
    3. Dirk Briskorn & Konrad Stephan & Nils Boysen, 2022. "Minimizing the makespan on a single machine subject to modular setups," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 125-137, February.

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