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Introduction
The Rail Application Special Interest Group (RASIG) under the auspices of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS), was created a decade ago by over 50 operations research professionals to foster productivity improvements through innovative technology within the rail industry. RASIG has over 100 active members who are operations research professionals from the railroad industry, consultants, academicians, and students. Over the past decade, RASIG has facilitated various activities including paper sessions, roundtables, a Newsletter, an Operations Research Forum, and student paper competitions. This year, as part of continuing efforts to promote interaction and exchange of ideas, RASIG is organizing a workshop for industry and academic collaboration among operations research personnel, consultants, and members of academia.
Motivation
Although the railroad transportation industry is rich with planning and scheduling problems that can be modeled and solved through operations research techniques, these techniques are not widely used throughout the rail industry. Currently, most railroad personnel rely on manual decision-making processes for the majority of their planning and scheduling needs. The complexity of railroad scheduling problems, as well as the absence of IT infrastructure to capture real-time data, is the greatest impediments in the use of these techniques. RASIG's upcoming collaborative workshop will bring together leading researchers and practitioners from the field of operations research as well as senior and mid-level railroad managers to encourage an exchange of ideas around these issues.
Workshop Goals
1. Identify important problems faced by railroads on which academicians can do research and develop model-based decision support systems
2. Develop awareness of operations research techniques among the senior railroad executives
3. Learn from senior railroad management about the current challenges faced in railroad scheduling and future opportunities for research and development