On Tuesday I think there were a couple of incidents on the South West part of the network, which caused delays and cancellations for a time. I was lucky enough to arrive at the station in time to catch a delayed train, and it got me thinking about the process of getting trains and staff in the right places.
Many years ago I did a maths degree and one of the subjects was linear programming, which I vaguely recall to be the study of optimising systems to get things in the desired place for the lowest cost/time. While my studies never got anywhere close to the complexity of a rail network, it occurred to me that the general principles might be applicable to the problem.
It would be horrendously complicated - you'd have to consider speed limits, bottlenecks, infrastructure, driver knowledge and a whole bunch of other stuff. I wouldn't even know where to start, but it feels (in my ignorance) like the sort of problem that can lend itself to mathematical optimisation. So my question is: how does the industry go about disentangling the network when it snarls up? Is it a process of feeding data into a computer and acting upon the result, or a team of people making judgement calls based upon their experience, or a combination of both?
I'm genuinely curious. While I wasn't a great mathematician I now work in IT, so this sort of thing interests me. (Though if I'm ever given the task of devising an automated network-disentangling algorithm I will throw myself off a building).
Many years ago I did a maths degree and one of the subjects was linear programming, which I vaguely recall to be the study of optimising systems to get things in the desired place for the lowest cost/time. While my studies never got anywhere close to the complexity of a rail network, it occurred to me that the general principles might be applicable to the problem.
It would be horrendously complicated - you'd have to consider speed limits, bottlenecks, infrastructure, driver knowledge and a whole bunch of other stuff. I wouldn't even know where to start, but it feels (in my ignorance) like the sort of problem that can lend itself to mathematical optimisation. So my question is: how does the industry go about disentangling the network when it snarls up? Is it a process of feeding data into a computer and acting upon the result, or a team of people making judgement calls based upon their experience, or a combination of both?
I'm genuinely curious. While I wasn't a great mathematician I now work in IT, so this sort of thing interests me. (Though if I'm ever given the task of devising an automated network-disentangling algorithm I will throw myself off a building).