Resilience in Railway Transport Networks: From Concepts to Applications

by Interim Professor Nikola Bešinović, Technical University of Dresden, Germany

Abstract: The rising transport demand increases the congestion in railway networks and thus they become more interdependent and more complex to operate. At the same time, an increasing number of disruptions due to system failures as well as climate changes can be expected in the future. As a consequence, many trains are cancelled and excessively delayed, and thus, many passengers are not reaching their destinations which compromises customers need for mobility. In this talk, we introduce the concepts of resilience, particularly focussing on railway transport systems. A brief overview of internal and external disruptive events will be presented. We then elaborate on different approaches for assessing and improving resilience of the railway transport system including  their specific advantages and disadvantages. Diverse aspects will be covered including planning and real-time applications covering different resilience stages. Finally, several examples will be demonstrated such as monitoring the system’s resilience based on the historical disruption data, assessing vulnerability of the networks including the infrastructure impacted by floods, and responding and recovering from the system’s failures.      

About presenter: Nikola Bešinović is a Head of the Chair of Rail and Public Urban Transport at Technical University of Dresden, Germany. Previously, he was a Lecturer and Researcher at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He has a PhD in Railway Transport (2017) from Delft University of Technology, and a MSc in Operations Research (2011) and BSc in Railway Transport and Traffic Engineering (2009) both from University of Belgrade. Nikola’s research develops analytics and optimization methodologies to promote efficient, reliable and sustainable railway transport systems. His main focus is on resilient transport concepts, combining AI and optimization, and improving capacity of infrastructure and multimodal operations. Nikola received several scientific awards, including the Young Railway Operations Researcher Award from IAROR, the TRAVISIONS Young Researcher Award, and the Best IEEE ITS Dissertation Award. He is a Chair of INFORMS Railway Application Section.