Francesco Piu research projects

This page reports only the academic work registered in the databases of the Transport and Mobility Laboratory, and is not necessarily a comprehensive list of the work by Francesco Piu.

More information may be available here

Robust Optimization of Railway Locomotive Assignment

Sponsor: Transport and Mobility Laboratory, EPFL

Team: Michel Bierlaire (PI), Prem Kumar (PM), Francesco Piu

Period: October 01, 2010-September 30, 2011

Locomotive assignment at Railway companies is a complex problem that must optimally assign a set of locomotives to known, scheduled trains. Each train has a power and traction requirement and locomotives may be available in groups known as "consist". There is a cost involved in breaking or adding a locomotive to a consist. Determining an optimal locomotive assignment that would also be robust to handle delays, maintenance requirements and other unknown factors is a complex problem. We are inspired from the research in a similar, closely related subject in the airline industry and would explore the possibilities of extending the same to railways. This project would be a part of the larger concept of "Flexible Transportation Systems"