Author(s)

Y. Putallaz & R. Rivier

Abstract

Political trends as well as general growth of the transport market set new challenges to railways and particularly to rail infrastructure managers. Rail infrastructure must become more efficient, which is to say that costs must be reduced and the use of capacity optimised, through better timetabling and network adjustments. But above all, rail infrastructure management should tackle strategic issues (on the long-term), hence the need for more adequate planning tools. Nowadays, infrastructure managers often tend to concentrate on operational and short-term problems; meanwhile, reshaping rail networks requires several years of planning and implementation. In this context, the paper presents a methodology and the bases for the development of an effective decision support system to help in

Keywords