Review of railway disruption management practice and literature

This paper investigates the challenges of railway traffic controllers in dealing with big disruptions and the kind of support tools that could help to improve their task in terms of performance and lead time. The disruption handling process can be partitioned into three phases according to the bathtub model and to each phase the essential decision making processes have been identified. Currently, the support to rail traffic controllers in case of severe disruption is limited to predefined contingency plans that are not always feasible or applicable. In the literature models and algorithms have been identified that could be used in the different parts of the three phases of the disruption handling process. The contribution of this study is threefold. The processes of disruption management in practice and the challenges that traffic controllers are facing during a disruption are brought forward. Next a literature review of models applicable to disruption management are reviewed and classified based on the three phases of the traffic state during disruptions. Finally, an example illustrates how microscopic models could support a traffic controller in filling in the gaps of the current contingency plans