Distributed scheduling for real-time railway traffic control

The increase of railway traffic efficiency and flexibility requires new real-time scheduling and control methods. New charter trains have to be added continuously without disturbing the other (periodic) train moves or decreasing the safety conditions. A distributed method to schedule new trains such that their real-time constraints are fulfilled is presented. The trains have timelines to meet and hence the deadlines are extracted taking into account the included laxity. The trains have pre-established routes specifying the stations and required arrival times. The paths containing the block sections from one station to another are dynamically allocated without leading to deadlocks.