While Europe is growing together, mobility is increasing in a way that calls for systematic traffic planning in a broad context. The European railways are requested to play a central role in this development. Future developments and improvements of European railways will have an impact on people's lives and therefore on society in general.
The problems arising in this context are highly complex. Not only are new technological solutions requested, but new models supporting the understanding of the structure behind these problems are needed. In all areas of today's traffic engineering, mathematical methods and sophisticated algorithms are of increasing importance.
In an intensive dialogue between railway companies, traffic engineers and computer scientists, clear formal models are to be developed. Here are many interesting and challenging algorithmic problems waiting to be studied. Techniques from combinatorial optimization and efficient algorithms must be provided. Transposing these into practical and applicable methods is again a task to be undertaken. Due to the diversity of the theme, the research network will focus on an intensive knowledge exchange and the common consideration of the national railway systems aiming for the development of a European view.
The main objectives of the research training network are:
Research topics include the formulation, analysis, and validation of domain models of railways, and the transfer of such models to concrete algorithmic problems such as the design and optimization of railway timetable information systems, methods to support the planning and evaluation of the building and extension of railway systems, modeling and handling of new price structures, and network controlling. The goal is to provide improved and new algorithms for the solution of such problems as well as prototype implementations.