Disruption Management in PassengerTransportation - from Air to Tracks

Over the last 10 years there has been a tremendous growth in air transportation of passengers. Both airports and airspace are close to saturation with respect to capacity, leading to delays caused by disruptions. At the same time the amount of vehicular traffic around and in all larger cities of the world has show a dramatic increase as well. Public transportation by e.g. rail has come into focus, and hence also the service level provided by suppliers ad public transportation. These transportation systems are likewise very vulnerable to disruptions. In the airline industry there is a long tradition for using advanced mathematical models as the basis for planning of resources as aircraft and crew. These methods are now also coming to use in the process of handling disruptions, and robustness of plans has received much interest. Commercial IT-systems supplying decision support for recovery of disrupted operations are becoming available. The use of advanced planning and recovery methods in the railway industry currently gains momentum. The current paper gives a short overview over the methods used for planning and disruption management in the airline industry. The situation regarding railway optimization is then described and discussed. The issue of robustness of timetables and plans for rolling stock and crew is also addressed.