Abstract

The city of Montpellier in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France features a fast growing tram network as a central part of its public service infrastructure. Here, as in many other tram networks, resources like tracks and stations are shared between different lines. Because of the resulting dependencies, small inevitable delays can spread through the network and affect its global performance. This article examines whether a robust tram schedule may help to raise punctuality in Montpellier’s tram network. To accomplish this, we apply a tool set designed to generate schedules optimized for robustness, which also satisfy given sets of planning requirements. These tools allow to compare time tables with respect to their punctuality and other key indicators.
After an introduction to the goals of this paper, we continue with a description of the tool set focusing on opti-mization and simulation modules. These software utilities are then employed to generate and simulate robust and non-robust schedules for Montpellier’s tram network, which are subsequently compared for the resulting delays.