A new approach to the planning process, worked out by SICS, makes huge savings for the railway sector

While many people spend the long, beautiful summer days relaxing in their hammocks, this is the busiest time of the year for others. Right now, the planning process for next year's railway traffic is at a crucial stage at Trafikverket (the Swedish Transport Administration).

Since 2005, SICS has been funded by Banverket to do research on timetable related issues. This research has resulted in a prototype tool for efficient timetable generation. Just as important, research soon showed that there is a huge potential in revising the entire planning process at Trafikverket, to enable them to update their plans seamlessly and continuously, and to offer flexibility and better service to their customers.

The currently funded projects are called Train Plan 2015 and Maraca, both stemming from the project The Dynamic Train Plan (2005-2008). While Maraca focuses on developing algorithms for an optimizing tool, Train Plan 2015 has been looking at (among other things) how the process at large needs to evolve in order to get the most benefit out of technological improvements like optimizing tools.

As of this year, the railway market in Sweden is completely deregulated, meaning that many operators now compete for the same capacity. It's the task of Trafikverket (previously Banverket, the Swedish Rail Administration) to co-ordinate the applications for train paths from all operators and create one single train plan for the whole country, for one full year at the time. The train plan of 2011 takes shape between April and September 2010, takes effect in mid-December 2010 and is valid until mid-December 2011.

Establishing a very detailed plan as long as 15 months in advance (which is the case for the last trains in the plan) does not seem very efficient – especially not since making changes to the plan is a complicated procedure. After examining the process, the researchers at SICS were able to show how applying elements of lean production and just-in-time would improve the planning process significantly.

The key is to minimize waste, and to "pull" rather than "push", throughout the process. Translated to our setting, lean production means that Trafikverket should avoid putting effort into producing anything (e.g. details in a plan) that is likely to become outdated before it will be used. The pull strategy involves producing only what the next step in the value chain really needs, when they need it, and to perform only value-adding activities.

The new process is called Successive Allocation, and the general principle governing it is the separation of the train plan into two parts: what Trafikverket commits itself to deliver to its customers (the operators), and production plans containing the details showing how Trafikverket will deliver what has been promised. The first part is negotiated and clearly stated in contracts, and should typically be the arrivals and departures that are important to the operators. All other details belong in the production plans, and can change as often as necessary as long as the delivery commitments stay the same.

With the high capacity utilization of the railway network that we see today in Sweden, the change suggested by SICS has the potential of huge savings for the raiway sector, and for society as a whole, since it will make railway traffic more efficient and flexible. Trafikverket has set up a development program to have the Successive Allocation incorporated by the year 2015, and SICS will continue to play an important role while this change is being implemented.

 
Links

Article in Swedish: Godset nr 4, page 14
Train related projects at SICS.

Photo: Peter Lydén.