The Canadian Pacific Railway Locomotive Resource Planning Model

1
The Canadian Pacific Railway Locomotive Resource
Planning Model

• Presentation to INFORMS
• Seattle
• October 26, 1998

2
Overview of Presentation

• Project background
• Model design
• Methodology and implementation
• Status
• Conclusions

3
The Canadian PacificService Design Vision

• Canadian Pacific Railway will have and use a
  structured methodology and state of the art tools
  for designing, validating, executing, and
  refining a committed operating plan providing for
  consistently reliable, competitive service at a
  low cost.

4
MultiRail Implementation at Canadian Pacific

• Objective The MultiRail Project will provide
  CPR with a service design package to improve
  the operating plan as represented currently in
  MTP, CYards, and SMS.
• Major tasks
• Development of service group blocking and train
  design
• Creation of unified operating design structure
• Validation of model and resource planning,
  including crews and locomotives
• Plan publication

5
CPR Requirements from the Locomotive Resource
Planning Model

• Locomotives required, by type of locomotive and
  class of service
• Inventory of locomotives by type, location, and
  time
• Deadheading requirements
• Calibration and manual adjustment capabilities
• Summary statistics

6
Possible Approaches to Locomotive Resource
Planning

• (1) Aggregate planning
• Requirements developed from HP-miles and HP-hours
  required during modeling cycle
• (2) Network scheduling
• Requirements developed from definition of
  locomotive cycles required to power all trains
• (3) Combined approach
• Requirements developed from locomotive
  inventories at key terminals and balancing power
  in network by deadheading

7
Input Requirements for the A L Locomotive
Resource Planning Model

• Train schedules and expected tonnages
• Physical network characteristics
• Rules governing assignment of locomotives to
  trains
• Locomotive processing requirements and
  capabilities
• Rules governing balancing of locomotive supply
  and demand

8
Overview of the A L Model
MultiRail
Inputs from CP
Segment and schedule information HP/ton
requirements
Locomotive fleet characteristics Standard
locomotive consists Power pool locations Operation
al parameters
A L Associates Model (written in MS Access)
User Adjustments by CPR
? Number and type of required locomotives ? Runnin
g inventories of locomotives at terminals and on
the road ? Summary statistics
9
Model Capabilities

• Size of problem
• 1,000 trains over seven-day cycle
• 2,400 terminals
• 1,000 unit locomotive fleet comprised of 16
  categories
• Time required
• Less than 10 minutes on Pentium class PC
• Terminal hierarchy would be defined for each new
  network

10
Model Capabilities (Continued)

• Scenario Options
• Define ideal consists for trains
• Define cycled power
• Default Scenario Options
• Locomotive categories and fleet assignments
• Default consist assignments
• Terminal network data
• Locomotive management inputs
• Substitution priorities

11
Outputs of A L Model

• Fleet requirements locomotive units of
  different classes required to operate plan
• Terminal activity inventories throughout
  modeling cycle
• Fleet performance statistics utilization,
  horsepower-hours, gross-ton miles, and
  productivity

12
Modeling Assumptions Regarding Pooling of
Locomotives

• Units that come off inbound trains are serviced
  and then become part of a power pool.
• Outbound trains take units from the power pool as
  needed without regard to inbound trains.
• In cases of shortages of units, additional power
  must be sent to the terminal or certain trains
  must be under-powered, delayed, or cancelled.
• In cases of surpluses of units, fleet managers
  must decide whether units should be sent to
  terminals where they can be used more effectively.

13
Modeling Methodology (1)

• Default consists based on train category and
  terminal location are assigned for each train
  route segment where a locomotive consist is
  indicated in MultiRail.
• The number of units assigned is adjusted to
  reflect the minimum power requirements and manual
  overrides entered by the model user.
• Locomotive lineups are created for each terminal.

14
Modeling Methodology (2)

• Deadheading requirements are determined by
  aggregating weekly supply and demand of
  locomotives at terminals to identify surpluses
  and deficits.
• Locomotive demand is balanced over the CP network
  in a pre-arranged set of steps in which smaller
  and more peripheral terminals reconcile surpluses
  and deficits with their source terminals.

15
Calculating Network Locomotive Demand

• Classification of terminals into four levels
• Hump Yards
• Regional Yards
• IMS and Local Yards
• Other Terminals (e.g., customers)
• Categorization contained in MultiRail data on
  terminals
• Higher order yards are successively balanced with
  lower order yards associated with them based on
  proximity

16
Calculating Network Locomotive Demand Simplified
Diagram of Stage 1Balancing Demand from
Customer Yards into Local Yards
South Edmonton
Golden
Sutherland
Coquitlam
Alyth Yard
Winnipeg
Quebec
Moose Jaw
Lethbridge
Thunder Bay
St. Luc
Ottawa
Stinson Yd
Toronto Yard
Lambton
St. Paul Yd
Kenwood Yd
Milwaukee
Selkirk
Bensenville
Clearing Yard
Blue Island
17
Calculating Network Locomotive Demand Simplified
Diagram of Stage 2Consolidation of Demand into
CPRs Hump and Regional Yards
South Edmonton
Sutherland
Coquitlam
Alyth Yard
Winnipeg
Moose Jaw
Lethbridge
Thunder Bay
67
St. Luc
Toronto Yard
Lambton
St. Paul Yd
Milwaukee
Selkirk
Bensenville
Clearing Yard
Blue Island
18
Calculating Network Locomotive Demand Simplified
Diagram of Stage 3Consolidation of Demand into
the Six CP Hump Yards
Alyth Yard
Winnipeg
Toronto Yard
St. Paul Yd
Bensenville
Clearing Yard
19
Calculating Network Locomotive Demand Simplified
Diagram of Final StageBalancing Demand Among
Calgary, Winnipeg, and St. Paul Hump Yards
Alyth Yard
Winnipeg
St. Paul Yd
20
Modeling Methodology (3)

• Taking into account the required light moves,
  terminal and road inventories are created for the
  modeling period.
• Initial inventories are adjusted to avoid excess
  deficits, taking into account servicing and
  maintenance requirements.
• The number of units required under an operating
  plan, as well as other summary statistics, can be
  obtained by summing over the terminal and road
  inventories.

21
Locomotive Inventory Graphic
22
Model Architecture
Queries and Visual Basic Code
Queries and Visual Basic Code
MultiRail Input Tables
Intermediate Tables
Output Tables Reports
MMTRN
Terminal locomotive transactions
Terminal locomotive transactions
Terminal locomotive inventories
MMTRNSCH
Consist assignments
Required fleet size and summary statistics
Terminal locomotive surpluses deficits
MMNDESUM
MMTRNRTV
23
Current Status

• Model has been completed and tested with inputs
  from CP Rail
• Basic functionality has been demonstrated
• MultiRail functions as effective source of inputs
• Calibration and validation requires comparison to
  actual performance

24
Conclusions

• Use of knowledge of the network and of the
  problem made it possible to simplify the analysis
  into a one-pass process
• Several parameters facilitate calibration, but
  calibration still requires actual performance
  data that may not be readily available
• Speed and capabilities of personal computers with
  standard software now permit effective handling
  of real world problems