Optimization of railway curfew planning by scheduling of rail projects an‎d allocation of railway maintenance crews

12/14/2026 12:00:00 AM

In this study, the blockage planning an‎d maintenance scheduling problem is formulated as a time–space network model. From the perspective of constraints, the model does not merely produce a simple production schedule; rather, it explicitly incorporates a set of decisive operational restrictions. First, precedence constraints are imposed so that projects are allowed to start only when their prerequisites have been completed within the appropriate timeframe; consequently, no “early start” is possible in the output. Second, simultaneous blocking of adjacent tracks in the network is enforced to prevent operational conflicts at the network level. Third, the non-simultaneous execution of designated projects is independently controlled. Additionally, maintaining the temporal separation between project activities is considered a key constraint, an‎d finally, the precedence relationships among activities are fully respected. The direct output of this formulation is an annual schedule that specifies which work team will execute which project in each week. Importantly, this schedule is not based on hypothetical data; rather, it has been implemented as a case study for the railway network of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

: مسدودي خطوط، , نگهداري و تعميرات ريلي، , زمان‌بندي پروژه، , تخصيص تيم‌هاي كاري

Line blocking, , Railway maintenance, , Project scheduling, , Crew assignment

Farahnaz Doosti Mohammadi Dahaj

Masoud Yaghini