The feeder-vehicle routing and high-speed-train assignment problem with time windows

The coordinated operation of intercity linehaul that relies on high-speed trains and urban transportation modes is important and necessary to maintain the service level of passenger transportation. To improve the performance of the high-speed railway station operation, this paper introduces the feeder-vehicle routing and high-speed-train assignment problem with time windows (FVRTAP-TW). The FVRTAP-TW objective is to minimize the average of passengers' delaying time at the high-speed railway station through optimizing feeder-vehicle routes and passengers' assignments to high-speed trains. The FVRTAP-TW has the characters of time windows, assignment decisions on the connection between urban transport and intercity linehaul, and heterogeneous fleets. We define the FVRTAP-TW and develop a mathematical model. An adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) algorithm is proposed. Computational experiments are conducted to test the model and the ALNS algorithm. Computational results indicate that it is practicable and necessary to improve the service level of the high-speed railway station and the passenger experiences by considering the interaction of urban-transport routes and the schedule high-speed trains.