Solving the Periodic Scheduling Problem: An Assignment Approach in Non-Periodic Networks

The periodic event scheduling problem (PESP) is a well researched problem used for finding good periodic timetables in public transport. While it is based on a periodic network consisting of events and activities which are repeated every period, we propose a new periodic timetabling model using a non-periodic network. This is a first step towards the goal of integrating periodic timetabling with other planning steps taking place in the aperiodic network, e.g. passenger assignment or delay management. In this paper, we develop the new model, show how we can reduce its size and prove its equivalence to PESP. We also conduct computational experiments on close-to real-world data from Lower Saxony, a region in northern Germany, and see that the model can be solved in a reasonable amount of time.