Multicommodity Network Design Problem in Rail Freight Transportation Planning

Network Design Problem (NDP) is one of the important problems in combinatorial optimization. Among the network design problems, the Multicommodity Network Design (MCND) problem has numerous applications in transportation, logistics, telecommunication, and production systems. In general, decision making in rail freight transportation has three main levels: strategic, tactical, and operational. In the field of rail freight transportation planning, MCND occurs in all levels of decision making such as car blocking, train makeup, and empty car distribution. This paper presents a review of MCND problems modeling, their applications in rail freight transportation planning, and solution methods which have been developed to solve them.