A multimodal solution approach for mitigating the impact of planned maintenance on metro rail attractiveness

The possible unavailability of urban rail-based transport services due to planned maintenance activities may have significant consequences on the perceived quality of service, thus affecting railway attractiveness. To cope with the mitigation of planned service interruptions and to guarantee a seamless journey and a good travel experience for passengers, it is possible to exploit the existing services differently and/or provide additional on-demand services, such as temporary supplemental bus lines. In this context, this paper aims to develop a mathematical programming model for planning service interruptions due to maintenance considering passenger transport demand dynamics. In particular, the proposed approach deals with service interruptions characterized by a long duration for which timetable adaption strategies are not applicable, suggesting mitigation actions that exploit the already existing services and/or the activation of additional ones, with the aim of minimizing users’ inconvenience. In doing so, the planned infrastructure status (i.e., available or under maintenance), as well as the forecasted transport demand, are taken into account to adapt the service accordingly by offering a multimodal transport solution to passengers. To find the best solution, a decomposition solution approach is proposed in combination with a multistage cooperative framework with feedback that models the negotiation process between the involved actors. Finally, the applicability of the proposed approach to real case studies is discussed based on some performance indicators.