A co-evolutionary algorithm for train timetabling

With many train operating companies sharing limited capacity on the UK rail network, the train timetabling problem is complex and difficult to solve. This paper reports on a cooperative coevolutionary approach for the automatic generation of planning train timetables at the early stages of the timetabling process, when the main objective is to try to accommodate the bids as much as possible and to identify the major conflicts that need resolving by negotiations with the train operating companies. Some test experiments based on artificial problem instances as well as a real network are discussed.