Event-Based Model for Optimizing Shunting Yard Operations

Shunting is an important component of single-wagon-load railway operations. It consists of splitting incoming freight trains and forming new outgoing trains by reassembling the wagons from different incoming trains. The efficiency of shunting operations has a major impact on the performance of rail freight services. An event-based model is proposed for sorting trains for shunting at a hump shunting yard, which is capable of handling real-time changes in the system. In this model, various events are designed for managing changes in the system over time. At each time step, the optimal sequence of trains for shunting is determined to maximize the throughput of the shunting yard. The model was tested in a benchmark study and was shown to be an improvement over the previous solutions as well as solutions based on the first-in, first-out strategy.