Uni-Logo AG Kombinatorische Optimierung

Rail-road terminal optimization


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Rail-road terminals are the chain link between rail and road transport in intermodal terminals. Inside rail-road terminals rail mounted gantry cranes (RMGs) lift standardised load units (containers, swap bodies and trailers) between trucks and wagons of trains (and also the intermediate storage area). The operative optimization of road-rail terminals aims to fasten the processing of load units while the workload of RMGs has to be minimized and the utilisation of trains has to be maximized. Minimizing the RMGs workload reduces costs for energy consumption and maintenance costs of the RMGs. In particular, we study three different operational optimization problems:


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Together with the industrial partners Berghof (Mühlhausen), DB Netz (Frankfurt), and Deutsche Umschlaggesellschaft Schiene-Straße (DUSS) mbH (Bodenheim) we developed optimization methods for the operative rail-road terminal optimization in practice. These methods were tested with the partners at the pilot terminal in Kornwestheim (close to Stuttgart) and integrated in the terminal-software BLU afterwards.

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