Integrated Approach for Convoy Dispatching and Passenger Routing at Railway Stations with Variable Composition Trains

This paper addresses a railway scenario with variable composition trains, and focuses on the management and simulation of the passenger flows and trains at stations. In particular, it proposes a management system aimed at optimally routing the passengers from their entrance in the station to the correct platform segment according the train they have to board, and scheduling the train service in terms of convoy composition, capacity and destinations. The resulting system is then modelled as a discrete event system (DES) and simulated, to evaluate its performance on the basis of indicators like the queue length, the unsatisfied demand, the passenger travel time in the station, and the passenger density at the platform. The proposed station management system is then tested on a mixed real/synthetic numerical example aimed at proving the feasibility and functioning of the proposed approach.