On the scheduling problem of cargo transportation on a railway network segment and algorithms for its solution

We consider the problem of scheduling cargo transportation on a railway network segment. The railway network is represented by an undirected multigraph. The traffic along the edges of the multigraph is carried out only at certain intervals – using “subthreads”. We formulate a new mathematical model of traffic along the edges of the multigraph. A universal criterion of optimality for the scheduling problem is proposed. We propose an algorithm to find a suboptimal solution. A meaningful example is given.