Unlocking the Potentials of Modularity in Railways, a Heuristic Framework for Pods Scheduling

Under the pressing need for increasing sustainability of freight transport, the rail sector faces challenges in competing with its road counterpart which can be contributed to lower flexibility and reliability. To overcome these challenges, intermodal rail freight systems should undergo a transformative evolution to enhance flexibility and seamlessly integrate with broader mobility services. Crucial to the success of any such innovative solution is integration with the existing railway infrastructure. This study explores the concept of modular vehicles (MV s) in rail systems, focusing particularly on the innovative 'Pod' system introduced in the Pods4Rail project. It introduces a framework for Pods scheduling on the railway network, incorporating an overlap-level-based platooning. Experiments show that implementing this system can significantly reduce the makespan and optimize railway capacity utilization, especially when dealing with larger problem sizes.