Crew scheduling in Indian railways: a case study of Vadodara division passenger train crews

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the crew scheduling problem in Indian Railways and propose a methodology to minimize crew requirements. In Particular, we deal with the scheduling of passenger train crews in Vadodara Division of Western Railway. In Part-I of the paper, we describe the organization of Indian Railways, highlight the decision making prcess and give a brief description of the crew categories. We end Part-I by giving the regulations relevant for the scheduling decisions and a formulation of the problem as of determining a 'crew link' that requires minimum number of crews.In Part-III we describe the 'A-D Sequence' methodology and discuss how this is used in evaluating a 'Crew Link' for the drivers of express trains in Vadodara Division. In conclusion, we remark that the methodology is very general and it could be used for scheduling of all category of crews for passenger trains.