A fast heuristic approach for train timetabling in a railway node

We consider a conflict-free scheduling problem which arises in railway networks, where ideal timetables have been provided for a set of trains, but where these timetables may be conflicting. We use a space-time graph approach from the railway scheduling literature in order to develop a fast heuristic which resolves conflicts by adjusting the ideal timetables while attempting to minimize the deviation from the ideal timetable. Our approach is tested on realistic data obtained from the railway node of Milan. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.