System and method for railyard planning
First Claim
1. A method of planning the movement of plural railcars through a rail yard, the rail yard having tracks that are used as receiving tracks, classification tracks and departure tracks and the plural railcars arriving on inbound trains and departing on outbound trains, the plural railcars required to undergo a sequence of tasks to move through the rail yard, comprising:
- (a) receiving a plurality of trains in a rail yard, each train having a plurality of railcars received on a receiving track;
(b) for each group of railcars on a receiving track, assigning an importance value for each railcar;
(c) aggregating the importance values of the railcars for each receiving track;
(d) scheduling the railcars to be moved to the classification tracks as a function of the aggregated importance values of each of the receiving tracks, and(e) moving the railcars of the receiving track having the highest aggregated importance value to the scheduled classification tracks, before moving railcars of a receiving track having a lower aggregated value;
wherein the importance value is determined as a function of the scheduled departure time of the railcar and the probability of the railcar to make an outbound connection.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for generating a computer-aided rail yard plan for the movement of plural railcars through a rail yard, the rail yard having tracks that are used as receiving tracks, classification tracks and departure tracks and the plural railcars arriving on inbound trains and departing on outbound trains, the plural railcars required to undergo a sequence of tasks to move through the rail yard, the yard plan providing (a) a schedule for receiving trains, (b) a schedule for inspecting cars on receiving tracks, (c) a schedule for humping cars from receiving tracks into classification tracks, (d) a schedule for pulling trains onto departure tracks, (e) a schedule for testing trains, and (f) a schedule for departing trains.
117 Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method of planning the movement of plural railcars through a rail yard, the rail yard having tracks that are used as receiving tracks, classification tracks and departure tracks and the plural railcars arriving on inbound trains and departing on outbound trains, the plural railcars required to undergo a sequence of tasks to move through the rail yard, comprising:
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(a) receiving a plurality of trains in a rail yard, each train having a plurality of railcars received on a receiving track; (b) for each group of railcars on a receiving track, assigning an importance value for each railcar; (c) aggregating the importance values of the railcars for each receiving track; (d) scheduling the railcars to be moved to the classification tracks as a function of the aggregated importance values of each of the receiving tracks, and (e) moving the railcars of the receiving track having the highest aggregated importance value to the scheduled classification tracks, before moving railcars of a receiving track having a lower aggregated value; wherein the importance value is determined as a function of the scheduled departure time of the railcar and the probability of the railcar to make an outbound connection. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A method of planning the movement of plural railcars through a rail yard, the rail yard having tracks that are used as receiving tracks, classification tracks and departure tracks and the plural railcars arriving on inbound trains and departing on outbound trains, the plural railcars required to undergo a sequence of tasks to move through the rail yard, comprising:
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(a) identifying the outbound trains scheduled to depart the yard during a predetermined planning horizon; (b) identifying candidate railcars for each identified outbound train; (c) determining the business objective value of each identified candidate railcar; (d) ranking the identified candidate cars in decreasing order based on business objective values; and (e) selecting an identified candidate railcar for inclusion in an identified outbound train in order of the ranking of the candidate cars; wherein the step of raking includes; (i) determining the current availability of each identified candidate railcar; (ii) determining the probability of the candidate railcar to be ready for a departure of the identified outbound train as a function of the determined availability; (iii) weighting the business objective values of the railcar as a function of the determined probability of the railcar, (iv) aggregating the business objective values of the railcars for each receiving track; (v) scheduling the railcars to be moved to the classification tracks as a function of the aggregated business objective values of each of the receiving tracks; and (vi) moving the railcars of the receiving track having the highest aggregated business objective value to the scheduled classification tracks, before moving railcars of a receiving track having a lower aggregated business objective value. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method of planning the movement of plural railcars through a rail yard having a plurality of tracks used as receiving tracks, classification tracks and departure tracks, the method comprising:
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(a) receiving a plurality of trains in a rail yard, each train having a plurality of railcars received on a receiving track; (b) for each group of railcars on a receiving track, assigning an importance value for each railcar; (c) aggregating the importance values of the railcars for each receiving track; (d) scheduling the railcars to be moved to the classification tracks as a function of an ordered priority of the aggregated importance values and (e) moving the railcars of the receiving track having the highest aggregated importance value to the scheduled classification tracks, before moving railcars of a receiving track having a lower aggregated importance value; wherein the importance value is determined as a function of the scheduled departure time of the railcar and the probability of the railcar to make an outbound connection. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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Specification