EXDAFS-an Expert System for Dynamic Allocation of Facilities at Stations

EXDAFS is a rule-based system designed to facilitate the allocation of facilities to trains arriving and/or departing from a railway station. EXDAFS develops a static allocation for all trains, referred to as the master berthing chart, based on the train schedules and their berthing requirements. However, the trains get delayed due to unavoidable circumstances causing deviations from the normal schedule, thereby necessitating a dynamic reassignment of the facilities. A technique based on transformational synthesis to control the computational complexity of the reassignment process has been devised and implemented. This requires the problem to be decomposed into subtasks, which can be solved independently and then synthesized into a final solution. The system takes decisions globally in a real-time environment. EXDAFS has an explanation capability which provides a better understanding of its reasoning directions. This, along with a visual capability and interaction through a user-friendly interface, results in increased user acceptance of the system