An Empirical Study on the Design of China High-Speed Rail Express Train Operation Plan—From a Sustainable Transport Perspective

The sustained and steady development of China’s economy has led to the rapid improvement of the logistics. At the same time, the rise of the e-commerce mode has given rise to a huge demand for express delivery and the express industry has entered a period of boom. Fortunately, China’s high-speed rail network has been networked, and the development of a high-speed rail express train has entered the test stage. After the high-speed rail express train is put into use, it could effectively relieve the pressure of highway transportation and significantly reduce transport pollution. To make better use of high-speed rail transport resources and give full play to its green and efficient advantages, this study established a two-stage model of a high-speed rail express train operation plan. In the first stage, a train candidate set generation model aiming for the minimum total cost of train operation was established that considered the high-speed line carrying capacity, section flow capacity, and OD requirement satisfaction constraints, which reduces the scale of train spare parts and improves the efficiency of solution. In addition, a column generation algorithm was designed to solve the model. In the second stage, an accurate flow distribution model aiming for the optimal economic efficiency was established, and then the high-speed express train operation plan was designed completely. The computational results are encouraging and demonstrate the effectiveness of the model and solution method.