A General Train Connections Generation Procedure

Summary

A general method of constructing train connections for given train schedule data is presented. The proposed approach — named TIC (Train InterConnect) — derives a subset of possible train connections between two specified train stations of some railway network using basic schedule data as well as precompiled train connection data. In particular, TIC’s train connection generating algorithm deals with both linear and circular courses. Although the mathematics involved in the TIC approach is rather simple, it is claimed that TIC provides an encompassing formal model for generating train connections. In principle, the proposed approach is extensible easily to other types of traffic connections as well. The present paper only describes TIC’s core procedure deriving course sequences, leaving out the computation of service days and travel times of actual train connections.