A probabilistic (max, +) approach for determining railway infrastructure capacity

We consider the problem of determining the capacity of a planned railway infrastructure layout under uncertainties In order to address the long term nature of the problem in which the exact future demand of service is un known we develop a timetable free approach to avoid the speci cation of a particular timetable We consider a generic infra element that allows a con cise representation of many di erent combinations of infrastructure safety systems and tra c regimes such as mixed double and single track lines e g a double track line including a single tunnel tube and train operations on partly overlapping routes at station yards We translate the capacity assess ment problem for such a generic infra element into an optimization problem and provide a solution procedure We illustrate our approach with a capac ity assessment for the newly built high speed railway line in the Netherlands