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Empty Railcar Distribution

In: Handbook of Operations Research Applications at Railroads

Author

Listed:
  • Michael F. Gorman

    (Department of Operations Management)

Abstract

Each year in North America, approximately 30 million carloads are shipped via rail in “general merchandise” or carload service (AAR 2012). In each case, the railroad must deliver a rail-owned empty railcar (such as a box car, gondola, or hopper depending on the commodity) to the origin of the shipper to begin loading. (This process does not apply to private fleets owned and managed by the shipper, as is common for some car types such as tank cars.) After the loaded railcar is delivered to the shipper’s destination and emptied, the rail car is released back to the railroads’ custody and the cycle begins again. The challenge of repositioning a multitude of rail-owned railcars to various origins is known as the empty railcar distribution problem.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael F. Gorman, 2015. "Empty Railcar Distribution," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Bruce W. Patty (ed.), Handbook of Operations Research Applications at Railroads, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 177-189, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:isochp:978-1-4899-7571-3_7
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4899-7571-3_7
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    Cited by:

    1. Sun, Yanshuo & Kirtonia, Sajeeb & Chen, Zhi-Long, 2021. "A survey of finished vehicle distribution and related problems from an optimization perspective," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    2. Zu, Yue & Heydari, Ruhollah & Chahar, Kiran & Pranoto, Yudi & Cheng, Clark, 2022. "A railcar re-blocking strategy via Mixed Integer Quadratic Programming," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).

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