A Train Timetabling Optimization Method for Mixed Passenger and Freight Railway Transportation under the Prohibiting Meeting Requirement in the Section

This paper focuses on the problem of train timetabling optimization for mixed passenger and freight railway transportation, in which separated power multiple unit trains and freight trains are not allowed to meet in the railway section. A binary variable is used to determine whether two trains running in the opposite directions need to avoid meeting, and combined with other constraints during the train running process, a train timetabling optimization model is proposed which aims to achieve a trade-off between total travel time and total energy consumption. Finally, two numerical experiments are implemented to verify the validity of the established model. The experiment results show that our method can generate a train timetable on the premise of ensuring that separated power multiple unit trains and freight trains do not meet in the section, and the obtained train timetable can balance the total travel time and total energy consumption. The proposed method can provide a reasonable reference for the train timetabling optimization under the prohibiting meeting requirement in the section during the train timetable planning process.