Locomotive Scheduling in freight at Mpopoma Train Station

This paper presents use of Locomotive Scheduling Problems (LSP) planning version where there are multiple types of locomotives in solving delay problems experienced at Mpopoma Train Station. A study on the current scheduling system was done and key variables were identified. The decision variables were used to develop an integrated model that determines a set of active and deadheaded locomotives for each train and light train. Consist-bustings were explicitly considered and 20 restricted decision variables were optimised on 32 constraints. The solution obtained from running the model coded in LINGO 10.0 saved 38 locomotives which can translate to a significant amount of financial savings per year from the current way of scheduling wagons.