Scheduling Direct and Indirect Trains and Containers in an Intermodal Setting

• Published in: Transportation science 2000-08, Vol.34 (3), p.256-270
• Main Authors: Newman, Alexandra M, Yano, Candace Arai
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Combined transportation; Exact sciences and technology; Fixed costs; Freight; Ground, air and sea transportation, marine construction; Heuristics; Minimization of cost; Railroad trains; Railway systems; Railway transport; Railway transportation and traffic; Railways; Scheduling; Shipments; Storage containers; Trains; Transport infrastructure; Transport policy; Transportation costs; Transportation planning, management and economics; Variable costs
• ISSN: 0041-1655; 1526-5447
• DOI: 10.1287/trsc.34.3.256.12297

The focus of our research is on rail transportation of intermodal containers. We address the problem of determining day-of-week schedules for both direct and indirect (via a hub) trains and allocating containers to these trains for the rail (linehaul) portion of the intermodal trip. The goal is to minimize operating costs, including a fixed charge for each train, variable transportation and handling costs for each container and yard storage costs, while meeting on-time delivery requirements. We formulate the problem as an integer program and develop a novel decomposition procedure to find near-optimal solutions. We also develop a method to provide relatively tight bounds on the objective function values. Finally, we compare our solutions to those obtained with heuristics designed to mimic current operations, and show that a savings of between 5 and 20% can be gained from using our solution procedure.