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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CP.2025.33

Constraint-Based In-Station Train Dispatching

Authors: Andreas Schutt, Matteo Cardellini, Jip J. Dekker, Daniel Harabor, Marco Maratea, and Mauro Vallati

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 340, 31st International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2025)

Abstract

In-station dispatching is the problem of planning the movements of scheduled trains inside a railway station. Effective solutions for in-station dispatching are important for maximising the utilisation of railway infrastructure and for mitigating the impact of incidents and delays in the broader network. In this paper, we explore a constraint-based approach to perform in-station train dispatching. Our extensive empirical analysis of multiple modelling, search strategy, and solver choices, performed over synthetically generated, yet realistic, data, shows that our method outperforms the existing planning-based state-of-the-art approach. In addition, we present different optimisation criteria, which can be effortless defined thanks to the constraint-based approach.

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Andreas Schutt, Matteo Cardellini, Jip J. Dekker, Daniel Harabor, Marco Maratea, and Mauro Vallati. Constraint-Based In-Station Train Dispatching. In 31st International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 340, pp. 33:1-33:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{schutt_et_al:LIPIcs.CP.2025.33,
  author =	{Schutt, Andreas and Cardellini, Matteo and Dekker, Jip J. and Harabor, Daniel and Maratea, Marco and Vallati, Mauro},
  title =	{{Constraint-Based In-Station Train Dispatching}},
  booktitle =	{31st International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2025)},
  pages =	{33:1--33:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-380-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{340},
  editor =	{de la Banda, Maria Garcia},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CP.2025.33},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-238941},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CP.2025.33},
  annote =	{Keywords: in-station train dispatching, train scheduling, railway scheduling, constraint programming, mixed-integer programming}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CP.2022.21

Explaining Propagation for Gini and Spread with Variable Mean

Authors: Alexander Ek, Andreas Schutt, Peter J. Stuckey, and Guido Tack

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 235, 28th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2022)

Abstract

In optimisation problems involving multiple agents (stakeholders) we often want to make sure that the solution is balanced and fair. That is, we want to maximise total utility subject to an upper bound on the statistical dispersion (e.g., spread or the Gini coefficient) of the utility given to different agents, or minimise dispersion subject to some lower bounds on utility. These needs arise in, for example, balancing tardiness in scheduling, unwanted shifts in rostering, and desired resources in resource allocation, or minimising deviation from a baseline in schedule repair, to name a few. These problems are often quite challenging. To solve them efficiently we want to effectively reason about dispersion. Previous work has studied the case where the mean is fixed, but this may not be possible for many problems, e.g., scheduling where total utility depends on the final schedule. In this paper we introduce two log-linear-time dispersion propagators - (a) spread (variance, and indirectly standard deviation) and (b) the Gini coefficient - capable of explaining their propagations, thus allowing effective clause learning solvers to be applied to these problems. Propagators for (a) exist in the literature but do not explain themselves, while propagators for (b) have not been previously studied. We avoid introducing floating-point variables, which are usually not supported by learning solvers, by reasoning about scaled, integer versions of the constraints. We show through experimentation that clause learning can substantially improve the solving of problems where we want to bound dispersion and optimise total utility and vice versa.

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Alexander Ek, Andreas Schutt, Peter J. Stuckey, and Guido Tack. Explaining Propagation for Gini and Spread with Variable Mean. In 28th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 235, pp. 21:1-21:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{ek_et_al:LIPIcs.CP.2022.21,
  author =	{Ek, Alexander and Schutt, Andreas and Stuckey, Peter J. and Tack, Guido},
  title =	{{Explaining Propagation for Gini and Spread with Variable Mean}},
  booktitle =	{28th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2022)},
  pages =	{21:1--21:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-240-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{235},
  editor =	{Solnon, Christine},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CP.2022.21},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-166503},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CP.2022.21},
  annote =	{Keywords: Spread constraint, Gini index, Filtering algorithm, Constraint programming, Lazy clause generation}
}

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Constraint-Based In-Station Train Dispatching

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Explaining Propagation for Gini and Spread with Variable Mean

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