SBIR Phase II: A Decision Support System for the Railroad Blocking Problem

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This Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) Phase II project entails developing a decision support system for the railroad-blocking problem, one of freight railroad transportation's most significant optimization problems. The mathematical complexity of railroad transportation problems has precluded the development of optimization algorithms for solving them preventing railroads from benefiting from the advances taking place in the field of optimization; they still rely on manual decision-making processes for most of their planning and scheduling needs. During Phase I, the company developed prototype software for the railroad blocking problem and tested it on the data provided by three major US railroads: CSX Transportation, BNSF Railway, and Norfolk Southern Corporation. In this Phase II project the company will develop a prototype for a commercial decision support system for the railroad-blocking problem by combining state-of-the-art operations research techniques with latest information technology tools. This project will enhance core optimization engines and algorithms using cutting-edge ideas in network optimization, heuristic optimization, data structures, and software engineering. Database connectivity will also be provided. This Phase II project will extend algorithms for the railroad-blocking problem to similar problems arising in postal/package delivery service design and developing prototype software. Currently, railroads takes months of team effort to determine a blocking plan and undertake this exercise once in several years with intermittent periods of minor adjustments to account for seasonal variations in the traffic pattern. The proposed decision support system would allow a railroad to determine a blocking plan in a matter of a few hours and produce solutions far superior than those obtained manually. The proposed solution will enable a large freight railroad to optimize its blocking plans frequently and reduce cost by at least $10 million annually and hundreds of millions of dollars for railroads companies in the USA and Canada over a few years. The research will establish the efficacy of network optimization and heuristic methodology in solving railroad planning and scheduling problems. The success of this product will lead to a greater acceptance of optimization models and optimization-based software in the railroad industry.