A Survey on Container Processing in Railway Yards

  • Authors:

  • Nils Boysen;Malte Fliedner;Florian Jaehn;Erwin Pesch

  • Affiliations:

  • Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre/Operations Management, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, D-07743 Jena, Germany;Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre, Fachgebiet Operations Research, Technische Universität Darmstadt, D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany;Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Universität Siegen, D-57068 Siegen, Germany;Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Universität Siegen, D-57068 Siegen, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Transportation Science
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

In spite of extraordinary support programs initiated by the European Union and other national authorities, the percentage of overall freight traffic moved by train is in steady decline. This development has occurred because the macroeconomic benefits of rail traffic, such as the relief of overloaded road networks and reduced environmental impacts, are counterbalanced by severe disadvantages from the perspective of the shipper, e.g., low average delivery speed and general lack of reliability. Attracting a higher share of freight traffic on rail requires freight handling in railway yards that is more efficient, which includes technical innovations as well as the development of suitable decision support systems. This paper reviews container processing in railway yards from an operations research perspective and analyzes basic decision problems for the two most important yard types: conventional rail--road and modern rail--rail transshipment yards. Furthermore, we review the relevant literature and identify open research challenges.