A Stochastic Optimization Model for Freight Empty Cars Allocation in Railway Networks

In this paper, we investigate a freight empty cars allocation problem in railway network. Considering the dynamic time periods, a time-space network is firstly developed. Then a stochastic optimization model is constructed for the allocation of empty freight cars in stochastic environment, whose objective is to minimize the total cost consisting of the cost in a planning horizon incurred by transferring and storing cost in different stages. A simulated annealing algorithm is further designed to realize the optimal empty cars allocation strategies. A numerical example is finally given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and algorithm.