Despite the fact that rail freight transport is one of the most environmentally friendly matters of transport, its growth has been far behind the growth of freight transport in general. Studies showed that a competitive disadvantage is caused by a low availability of rolling stock, especially freight wagons. Changing from a time based to a condition based maintenance strategy is believed to dec...

This paper presents a novel matheuristic for solving the Hump Yard Block-to-Track Assignment Problem. This is an important problem rising in the railway freight industry and involves scheduling the transitions of a set of rail cars from a set of inbound trains to a set of outbound trains over a certain planning horizon. It was also the topic of the 2014 challenge organised by the Railway Applic...

This study defines a methodology to compute unitary costs for freight transportation modes. The main objective was to gather relevant costs data to support the formulation and evaluation of railway, road, pipelines and port projects. This article will concentrate on the following steps: Compilation and analysis of relevant modal cost studies, Methodological adjustments to make cost figures comp...

Long term demand for rail freight transportation in North America is projected to increase considerably in the coming decades. Additionally, government agencies want to increase the speed and frequency of passenger trains operating on certain freight lines, further adding to demand for new capacity. A significant portion of the routes in the United States are single track with passing sidings. ...

The most popular dispatching rule for double-track segments is to dedicate one track for trains traveling in one direction. However, today passenger trains are able to travel at a much faster speed compared to freight trains, but the limitation of the rail infrastructure makes it more cost effective to allow the passenger trains to share some portions of the railway tracks with the slower freig...

INTRODUCTION This study examines the use of the number of night-time sleep disturbances as a health-based metric to assess the cost effectiveness of rail noise mitigation strategies for situations, wherein high-intensity noises dominate such as freight train pass-bys and wheel squeal. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty residential properties adjacent to the existing and proposed rail tracks in a no...

The last decade has seen tremendous investments in new container ports, vessels, and linked onshore transportation systems. Due to the high level of customer service requested and the complexity of logistic processes in seaport container terminals, many terminal operators have attempted to improve the performance of their terminals by applying new technologies including automated equipment, adv...

This paper applies a geospatial network optimization model to explore environmental, economic, and time-of-delivery tradeoffs associated with the application of marine vessels as substitutes for heavy-duty trucks operating in the Great Lakes region. The geospatial model integrates U.S. and Canadian highway, rail, and waterway networks to create an intermodal network and characterizes this netwo...