[Opt-Net] Two PhD positions in operations research and public transport at the Technical University of Denmark

[Stefan Ropke]

Dear all,


Two 3-year PhD positions in operations research and public transport are
vacant at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). One position is
associated with the Department of Transport and one is associated with the
Department of Management Engineering. The PhD projects are financed by the
Innovation Fund Denmark and by DTU and will be carried out in collaboration
with our industrial collaborators, namely, Movia (Danish transport agency),
DSB (Danish State Railways), BaneDenmark (responsible for railway
infrastructure in Denmark) and Trafikstyrelsen (The Danish Transport
Authority, responsible for planning and coordinating public transport).


Please be aware that the application deadline already is June 25th.


--- Responsibilities and tasks ---

The PhD projects are part of a larger project (IPTOP) concerning integrated
optimization and planning in public transport. The goal of the overall
project is to develop methods for planning public transport that integrates
and synchronizes timetables across different modes of transportation (i.e.
bus and rail).

The overall project aims at producing timetables that provide a better
level of service for the passengers. However limited resources are
available to carry out the timetables so it is important to be able to
evaluate a timetable from a resource point of view. For bus timetables it
is necessary to know how many buses and drivers that will be needed to
carry out the plan, for train timetables it is necessary to know if the
timetable is feasible at all given the restrictions of track capacity and
secondary what the costs are in terms of rolling stock and crew
requirements. More information about the overall project is available at
http://www.iptop.transport.dtu.dk/



The aim of the first PhD project is to optimize the schedules of both
trains and buses given the expected passengers flows and preferences. Such
schedules are expected to be properly integrated in order to decrease the
passenger transfer times. The project will start from recent studies
illustrating the benefits of optimal route design, stop locations, and
overall passenger railway optimization in real-size public transport
networks, and from the state-of-the-art mathematical algorithms (e.g.,
column generation, cutting planes, parallel heuristics, etc.). Different
timetabling principles will also be investigated. The research will thus be
aimed at 1) developing new models for integrated optimized timetables for
both bus and railway operations and 2) developing fast algorithms
(metaheuristics) for solving the large-scale problems and exact algorithms
for small/medium-sized problems.



The aim of the second PhD project is to create operational plans for
physical resources and crew given a timetable. The study is expected to
develop models and methods to optimize railway operation considering
operational constraints, such as rolling stock restrictions, turnaround
time and staff restrictions. Integrated vehicle and crew scheduling for bus
transportation is already an established research field. For rail
transportation, the existing research focuses either on rolling stock
circulation, or on crew planning separately while little research has been
done towards integrating the two optimization problems. The research will
thus be to 1) develop new models for integrated vehicle and crew planning
for both bus and railway operations (taking into account constraints faced
by local operators to make plans realistic), 2) develop fast algorithms
(metaheuristics) for solving the large scale problems.



The precise scope and goals of both PhD projects will be settled with the
PhD candidates. The two PhD candidates are expected to work together with
the goal of integrating planning methods and are expected to work within a
larger research group / advisor group consisting of Assistant Professor
Roberto Roberti, Associate Professor Allan Larsen and Professor Stefan
Ropke. Formally the Allan Larsen and Stefan Ropke will each supervise one
PhD candidate.

The applicants are expected to contribute to teaching at the department and
must take courses equivalent to 30 ECTS points during the studies.



--- Qualifications ---

The applicant should have a strong background in operations research or
related subjects (i.e. computer science or mathematics). This background
must be documented by courses, MSc / BSc theses and/or publications. Good
English skills are expected. Relevant programming experience in a
programming language, such as C, C++, C#, and/or Java, is required.

Please see
http://www.man.dtu.dk/english/About-the-Department/Vacant-positions/job?id=f96b5a75-67d5-47d5-bd20-9ace80cf3cd9
and
http://www.transport.dtu.dk/english/Vacancies/job?id=94f66987-db04-4ccb-b231-6ad18ab24f63
for further information and for applying for the position.



For questions, please contact Stefan Røpke, ropke at dtu.dk or Allan Larsen,
ala at transport.dtu.dk
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