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Title:

INVENTORY MODEL OF THE RAILROAD EMPTY-CAR DISTRIBUTION PROCESS

Accession Number:

00184689

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

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Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0309026857

Abstract:

Techniques to improve freight-car fleet use are of considerable interest to the railroad industry. One potentially high improvement area is the disposition of empty cars within the network. This paper reports the first results of inventory control applied to one aspect of the process, namely the sizing of empty-car inventories at points in the network. First we evaluate existing techniques for distributing empty cars on a rail network. These techniques deal primarily with optimizing empty-car movements from areas of surplus to areas of deficit. To account for variations in supply and demand, we designed a discrete event simulation model that can determine optimum inventory level, for a single terminal area, as a function of (a) daily supply variations, (b) daily demand variations, and (c) cost of holding a car in a terminal awaiting loading compared to cost of having no car available to satisfy shipper demand. A first attempt to use the model to evaluate the performance of an actual railroad terminal area indicates that excessive inventories are maintained in surplus terminal areas. The applicability of the model to a real railroad operating situation is also demonstrated.

Supplemental Notes:

Publication of this paper sponsored by Committee on State Role in Rail Transport. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved

Monograph Title:

Rail planning

Monograph Accession #:

01411498

Authors:

Philip, Craig E
Sussman, Joseph M

Pagination:

pp 52-60

Publication Date:

1977

Serial:

Transportation Research Record

Issue Number: 656
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
ISSN: 0361-1981

Conference:

56th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board

Location: Washington District of Columbia, United States
Date: 1977-1-24 to 1977-1-28

ISBN:

0309026857

Media Type:

Print

Features:

Figures (8) ; References (8) ; Tables (2)

Old TRIS Terms:

Subject Areas:

Freight Transportation; Geotechnology; Highways; Materials; Planning and Forecasting; Railroads; Terminals and Facilities

Files:

TRIS, TRB

Created Date:

Dec 29 1978 12:00AM

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