A Framework for Managing Resources at Hump Shunting Yards

Shunting is an important component of freight rail operations. During shunting, incoming trains are split and new outgoing trains are formed by reassembling the blocks belonging to various incoming trains. The effciency of shunting operations, which greatly depend on the available resources at the yard, has a major impact on the performance of rail freight services. This paper proposes an event-based framework for modeling this dependany as well as the resource deployment at the yard. This model enables handling real time changes that may affect shunting operations. The model's functionalities have been shown using a test case.