Solving a periodic single-track train timetabling problem by an efficient hybrid algorithm

Train timetabling with minimum delays is the most important operating problem in any railway industry. This problem is considered to be one of the most interesting research topics in railway optimization problems. This paper deals with scheduling different types of trains in a single railway track. The primary focus of this paper is on the periodic aspects of produced timetables and the proposed modeling is based on the periodic event scheduling problem (PESP). To solve large-scale problems, a hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm based on simulated annealing (SA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed and validated using some numerical examples and an Iranian case study that covers the railway line between two cities of Isfahan and Tehran.