EURO 2024 Copenhagen
Abstract Submission

EURO-Online login

2935. Optimal use of in-house and outsourced vehicles

Invited abstract in session WC-56: Railway Applications, stream Transportation.

Wednesday, 12:30-14:00
Room: S04 (building: 101)

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Kritika Karwasra
Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Indian Institute of Information Technology
2. Narayan Rangaraj
Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Abstract

Rail is a good mode of transport especially for bulk commodities like cement and steel, over medium and long distances. However rail services are subject to delayed deliveries, especially due to unavailability of wagons (set of wagons, also known as rakes). To address these issues, companies invest in railway wagons. This fleet is maintained by the shipper, but the movement is by the railway company with a rebate on transportation cost. Procuring such a fleet requires a significant financial investment. We consider the case where some in-house rakes are procured that are used along with outsourced resources. With this mixed fleet composition and considering the benefits offered by in-house rakes over outsourced rakes, an operational question is: how should we allocate in-house and outsource rakes to various demands? We examine several allocation policies considering 1) distance 2) cost rebate through use in-house fleet and 3) overall transportation cost. A simulation modeling tool is used to assess different policies under various scenarios considering demand patterns, turnaround time, waiting time of locomotives and availability of outsourced rakes. The study also explores how the randomness associated with these parameters affects these policies. The general question is that of optimal use of limited internal capacity along with outsourced resources in a cost effective way.

Keywords

Status: accepted

Back to the list of papers