Rail transport network reliability with train arrival delay: A reference indicator for a travel agency in tour planning

As a tour agency plans a tour schedule with rail transport, it is necessary to evaluate the capacity of the rail transport network to determine the number of passengers in the tour group that can be served. This study develops a stochastic rail transport network (SRTN) according to the train timetable and tour schedule, such that each available train's loading capacity (that is, the number of cars) may be fully and partially reserved for other requests. Under the consideration of a tour group including q passengers, the network reliability accordingly means the probability that the q-passenger group can successfully depart from a source station for a sink station via the SRTN. In addition, the passengers might not punctually change trains at a transfer station owing to train arrival delay. Because the travel agency cannot control the situation of train arrival delay while planning a tour schedule, the uncertainty of train arrival delay results in an acceptable delay probability that the passengers traveling by non-direct trains can successfully change trains and this must be considered for the network reliability evaluation. An algorithm integrating the minimal paths and the modified Recursive Sum of Disjoint Product are integrated to solve the addressed problem. A real case of a rail transport network in Taiwan is adopted to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach. The travel agency can view the network reliability as a reference indicator to evaluate the number of passengers in the group that can be served.