ARRIVAL | Main / Home Page

Algorithms for Robust and online Railway optimization:
Improving the Validity and reliAbility of Large scale systems

ARRIVAL is a Specific Targeted Research Project funded by the FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) Unit of the European Commission (EC) — priority IST (Information Society Technologies) — within the 6th Framework Programme of EC, under contract no. FP6−021235–2.

Project Summary & Goals

Algorithmic methods have reached a state of maturity as a consequence of decades of research where real-world problems were posed to the algorithms community triggering important developments in the field. Despite this success, the current state of algorithmic research still faces severe difficulties, or cannot cope at all, with highly-complex and data-intensive applications as those dealing with optimization issues in large-scale communication and transportation networks. The complexity and size of such optimization problems pose new challenges for algorithmic research, and their efficient solution requires a radically new foundational paradigm.

In this project, we are interested in establishing such a new paradigm and considerably advance the current state of algorithmic research by attacking optimization questions in perhaps the most complex and largest in scale (transportation) setting: that of railway systems. Railway optimization deals with planning and scheduling problems over several time horizons. We focus on two important and actually unexplored facets of planning that pose even harder optimization questions: robust planning and online (real-time) planning. These two, tightly coupled, facets constitute a proactive and a reactive approach, respectively, to deal with disruptions to the normal operation.

Our main goal is to develop the necessary foundational algorithmic research in order to provide ingenious and sound answers to the fundamental efficiency and quality issues encapsulated in robust and online planning of complex, large-scale systems as those in railways. We will endeavour to develop a thorough understanding of the fundamental issues that make robust and online railway optimization problems hard and to subsequently develop new algorithmic and complexity principles to deal with hardness through an integrated, interdisciplinary approach drawn from algorithmic, operations research, and constraint programming techniques.

Project Duration: 01 February 2006 - 31 January 2009

News

2012 Prize Award for Academic & Scientific Excellence

Christos Zaroliagis received the prize award 2012 for Academic & Scientific Excellence awarded by the Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs in the field of mathematics and information sciences, for the excellent performance accomplished by the ARRIVAL project. Seven prizes are awarded annually, each one corresponding to a different scientific field (humanities and arts, biosciences, energy and environment, social sciences, engineering sciences, mathematics and information sciences, physical sciences). ARRIVAL was awarded among 68 submissions in the field of mathematics and information sciences (the total number of submissions for the 2012 award prizes exceeded 300). ARRIVAL in the Ministry’s excellence initiative, under the title Algorithms of Optimizing Railway Transport (GR)

European Commission Press Release

ARRIVAL has been selected by the European Commission as one of the most successful research projects and its results have been presented in a press conference in Brussels on Thursday 15 July 2010 (12:30). The press briefing was given by the spokesperson of Commissioner Neelie Kroes (Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Digital Agenda). See the EC Press Release issued by the European Commission (and translated in all EU languages).

The news in the international media:

i ARRIVAL | Main / Home Page

Algorithms for Robust and online Railway optimization:
Improving the Validity and reliAbility of Large scale systems

ARRIVAL is a Specific Targeted Research Project funded by the FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) Unit of the European Commission (EC) — priority IST (Information Society Technologies) — within the 6th Framework Programme of EC, under contract no. FP6−021235–2.

Project Summary & Goals

Algorithmic methods have reached a state of maturity as a consequence of decades of research where real-world problems were posed to the algorithms community triggering important developments in the field. Despite this success, the current state of algorithmic research still faces severe difficulties, or cannot cope at all, with highly-complex and data-intensive applications as those dealing with optimization issues in large-scale communication and transportation networks. The complexity and size of such optimization problems pose new challenges for algorithmic research, and their efficient solution requires a radically new foundational paradigm.

In this project, we are interested in establishing such a new paradigm and considerably advance the current state of algorithmic research by attacking optimization questions in perhaps the most complex and largest in scale (transportation) setting: that of railway systems. Railway optimization deals with planning and scheduling problems over several time horizons. We focus on two important and actually unexplored facets of planning that pose even harder optimization questions: robust planning and online (real-time) planning. These two, tightly coupled, facets constitute a proactive and a reactive approach, respectively, to deal with disruptions to the normal operation.

Our main goal is to develop the necessary foundational algorithmic research in order to provide ingenious and sound answers to the fundamental efficiency and quality issues encapsulated in robust and online planning of complex, large-scale systems as those in railways. We will endeavour to develop a thorough understanding of the fundamental issues that make robust and online railway optimization problems hard and to subsequently develop new algorithmic and complexity principles to deal with hardness through an integrated, interdisciplinary approach drawn from algorithmic, operations research, and constraint programming techniques.

Project Duration: 01 February 2006 - 31 January 2009

News

2012 Prize Award for Academic & Scientific Excellence

Christos Zaroliagis received the prize award 2012 for Academic & Scientific Excellence awarded by the Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs in the field of mathematics and information sciences, for the excellent performance accomplished by the ARRIVAL project. Seven prizes are awarded annually, each one corresponding to a different scientific field (humanities and arts, biosciences, energy and environment, social sciences, engineering sciences, mathematics and information sciences, physical sciences). ARRIVAL was awarded among 68 submissions in the field of mathematics and information sciences (the total number of submissions for the 2012 award prizes exceeded 300). ARRIVAL in the Ministry’s excellence initiative, under the title Algorithms of Optimizing Railway Transport (GR)

European Commission Press Release

ARRIVAL has been selected by the European Commission as one of the most successful research projects and its results have been presented in a press conference in Brussels on Thursday 15 July 2010 (12:30). The press briefing was given by the spokesperson of Commissioner Neelie Kroes (Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Digital Agenda). See the EC Press Release issued by the European Commission (and translated in all EU languages).

The news in the international media: