Empty freight car allocation problems as well as eet sizing problems depict highly important topics in the eld of railway cargo optimization. Fleet sizing is mainly used in order to nd the minimal number of freight cars ( xed costs) needed to operate the transportation network successfully (e.g. satisfy customer demands). After a consignment is transported to its destination, the unloaded freight cars must be reallocated. This reallocation process is linked to costs depending on the traveled distance. In this paper we propose an integer linear program (ILP) for determining the optimal trade-o between the number of freight cars and the costs linked to empty vehicle allocation. The ILP is tested on a distributation network that is related to a speci c part of Rail Cargo Austria’s railway network. Following the results of this test, di erent deviations in the network (changes in cost structure, drive time and demand) are examined and compared to the basic scenario.
Citation
Operations Research Proceedings 2018, accepted.