RAILCREW – advanced crew scheduling for train operating companies
Planning of train crews is one of the most difficult parts of operational planning for train operators, technical, educational, legal and rate constraints must be taken into account when scheduling drivers and crews. Currently most train operators use a variety of systems connected by multiple interfaces to carry out this task, with all disadvantages of disruptions in workflow and data models. Until recently, no integrated solutions were available to handle the full suite of tasks related to planning, optimising and dispatching of trains and train crews
IVU believes Rail operators are looking for solutions to cover:
- Long-term scheduling train drivers and train conductors shifts
- Rostering
- Daily operations and handling of daily schedule changes
- Management of Incidents with on-line access to estimated arrival times of running trains
Today, reserve drivers and train crews are typically spread around the network with no central overview of available staff. Whilst the passenger divisions have relatively long-term schedules, the cargo divisions may change up to 50% of its train and crew schedules on a daily basis, needing to adapt to the requirements of just-in-time ordering customers.
The main objective of the implementation of a crew scheduling system is to support these processes and enable a central overview of staff availability. The quality of information to train crews has to be improved at the same time by providing online web access to current shifts, rosters and information about short-term changes in crew assignment.
The Solution
Currently, a number of rail operators are using IVU modules, including Attiko Metro Athens, Munich regional rail, RheinNeckar regional rail and Swiss Federal Railways. These case studies show that handling more than 8000 trains and over 7000 train crew per day is an easy task for IVU's rail planning system.
The IVU system is based on the existing advanced planning modules of IVU which cover all aspects of rail and public transport production planning, starting from timetable construction, vehicle and rolling stock scheduling, duty scheduling, optimisation, crew daily operations and rolling stock assignment.
 |
| DriverDuties High Performance GUI with direct access to train-level timetable and route information. Integrated rule-based optimiser automatically generates shifts and checks for adherence to all legal and tariff constraints. |
The duty scheduling and crew daily operations modules were enhanced and can be easily integrated with existing IT infrastructure, mainly train planning systems and HR and financial systems.
Train schedules are imported from train planning systems online every 15 minutes. All changes in driver and crew shifts due to scheduled train changes are highlighted for the planners and can be handled easily using a high-performance GUI supported by a rule-based optimiser. After the actual data has been collected, a fully automated rule based payroll data generation takes place. Payroll data can be passed to many standard HR systems. Over 300 rules had to be set by some users to handle the complex payroll and time management agreements used, including the rate regulations of 7 different trade unions. End users can easily adapt the system to incorporate future changes in payroll and other rules. In 2005 the most complex part of the system, handling deviations caused by delays and service disruptions of a running train, will be introduced.
The MB-rail product line
Based on the experience in Switzerland and other projects - among which are the commuter train networks of Munich, Germany, the Metro networks of Bangkok, Thailand, Milan, Italy and Athens, Greece - IVU has enhanced its advanced planning modules to cover the full range of rail operators planning and dispatching tasks. IVU now offers the comprehensive MB-rail system to train operating companies throughout Europe and has succeeded in winning a number of contracts in 2004 from top-level operators. The UK market is supported by an office in Birmingham, with qualified staff who are well trained in all rail-related issues.
|
