The University of Klagenfurt was founded in 1970 and is the largest academic educational institution in Carinthia.
The complexity of the "railway" system has increased greatly in recent decades and today even the best planners can no longer manage it in its entirety. In some areas, good planning and decisions depend on the many years of experience of individual employees, which is why the upcoming generation change threatens to result in a significant loss of know-how. Furthermore, ÖBB is confronted with increasing market and customer requirements in terms of performance (stability & punctuality) and price (efficient use of resources).
The ÖBB Group-wide "Automated Resource Planning (ARP)" programme launched in 2019 aims to exploit this optimisation potential for both freight and passenger transport and thus increase the attractiveness of rail as a transport medium. Furthermore, the shift of traffic from road to rail is to be supported and the ecological footprint reduced. In the next few years, the largely sequential and partly manual logistics and personnel planning will be gradually transformed into integrated and automated planning within the framework of the ARP programme.
A core aspect of the ARP programme is the close cooperation with universities and research-related companies in the areas of simulation and optimisation. The cooperation with the University of Klagenfurt, which has been in place since 2017, focuses in particular on improving the efficiency of logistics processes through planning support and optimisation using mathematical models and intelligent algorithms. The development of mathematical models and prototypical algorithms to support planners in the disposition of empty wagons in WP 4 "Network optimisation" is close in terms of content and methodology to the FFG-MdZ project "AundO", which was completed in 2020 and supports the planning of traction units.