Robust Tactical Crew Scheduling Under Uncertain Demand

Author(s):  
Christian Rählmann ◽  
Felix Wagener ◽  
Ulrich W. Thonemann

We analyze a tactical freight railway crew scheduling problem, when train drivers must be informed several weeks before operations about the start and end times and locations of their duties. Between informing the train drivers and start of operations, trip demand changes due to cancellations, new bookings, and reroutings of trains, which might result in mismatches between train driver capacity at a location and demand. We analyze an approach that incorporates uncertain trip demand as scenarios, such that the start and end times and locations of the duties of a crew schedule are recoverable robust against deviations in trip demand. We develop a column generation solution method that dynamically aggregates trips to duties and decomposes the subproblems into smaller, computationally tractable instances. Our model determines duty frames that cover duties in many scenarios, creating recoverable robust crew schedules. We test our model on three real data sets of a major European freight railway operator. Our results show that our schedules are considerably more recoverable robust than those of the nominal solution, resulting in smaller mismatches between train driver capacity and demand.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Raymaekers ◽  
Peter J. Rousseeuw

AbstractMany real data sets contain numerical features (variables) whose distribution is far from normal (Gaussian). Instead, their distribution is often skewed. In order to handle such data it is customary to preprocess the variables to make them more normal. The Box–Cox and Yeo–Johnson transformations are well-known tools for this. However, the standard maximum likelihood estimator of their transformation parameter is highly sensitive to outliers, and will often try to move outliers inward at the expense of the normality of the central part of the data. We propose a modification of these transformations as well as an estimator of the transformation parameter that is robust to outliers, so the transformed data can be approximately normal in the center and a few outliers may deviate from it. It compares favorably to existing techniques in an extensive simulation study and on real data.


Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Zhengwei Liu ◽  
Fukang Zhu

The thinning operators play an important role in the analysis of integer-valued autoregressive models, and the most widely used is the binomial thinning. Inspired by the theory about extended Pascal triangles, a new thinning operator named extended binomial is introduced, which is a general case of the binomial thinning. Compared to the binomial thinning operator, the extended binomial thinning operator has two parameters and is more flexible in modeling. Based on the proposed operator, a new integer-valued autoregressive model is introduced, which can accurately and flexibly capture the dispersed features of counting time series. Two-step conditional least squares (CLS) estimation is investigated for the innovation-free case and the conditional maximum likelihood estimation is also discussed. We have also obtained the asymptotic property of the two-step CLS estimator. Finally, three overdispersed or underdispersed real data sets are considered to illustrate a superior performance of the proposed model.


Econometrics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Šárka Hudecová ◽  
Marie Hušková ◽  
Simos G. Meintanis

This article considers goodness-of-fit tests for bivariate INAR and bivariate Poisson autoregression models. The test statistics are based on an L2-type distance between two estimators of the probability generating function of the observations: one being entirely nonparametric and the second one being semiparametric computed under the corresponding null hypothesis. The asymptotic distribution of the proposed tests statistics both under the null hypotheses as well as under alternatives is derived and consistency is proved. The case of testing bivariate generalized Poisson autoregression and extension of the methods to dimension higher than two are also discussed. The finite-sample performance of a parametric bootstrap version of the tests is illustrated via a series of Monte Carlo experiments. The article concludes with applications on real data sets and discussion.


Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 202
Author(s):  
Louai Alarabi ◽  
Saleh Basalamah ◽  
Abdeltawab Hendawi ◽  
Mohammed Abdalla

The rapid spread of infectious diseases is a major public health problem. Recent developments in fighting these diseases have heightened the need for a contact tracing process. Contact tracing can be considered an ideal method for controlling the transmission of infectious diseases. The result of the contact tracing process is performing diagnostic tests, treating for suspected cases or self-isolation, and then treating for infected persons; this eventually results in limiting the spread of diseases. This paper proposes a technique named TraceAll that traces all contacts exposed to the infected patient and produces a list of these contacts to be considered potentially infected patients. Initially, it considers the infected patient as the querying user and starts to fetch the contacts exposed to him. Secondly, it obtains all the trajectories that belong to the objects moved nearby the querying user. Next, it investigates these trajectories by considering the social distance and exposure period to identify if these objects have become infected or not. The experimental evaluation of the proposed technique with real data sets illustrates the effectiveness of this solution. Comparative analysis experiments confirm that TraceAll outperforms baseline methods by 40% regarding the efficiency of answering contact tracing queries.


Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 474
Author(s):  
Abdulhakim A. Al-Babtain ◽  
Ibrahim Elbatal ◽  
Hazem Al-Mofleh ◽  
Ahmed M. Gemeay ◽  
Ahmed Z. Afify ◽  
...  

In this paper, we introduce a new flexible generator of continuous distributions called the transmuted Burr X-G (TBX-G) family to extend and increase the flexibility of the Burr X generator. The general statistical properties of the TBX-G family are calculated. One special sub-model, TBX-exponential distribution, is studied in detail. We discuss eight estimation approaches to estimating the TBX-exponential parameters, and numerical simulations are conducted to compare the suggested approaches based on partial and overall ranks. Based on our study, the Anderson–Darling estimators are recommended to estimate the TBX-exponential parameters. Using two skewed real data sets from the engineering sciences, we illustrate the importance and flexibility of the TBX-exponential model compared with other existing competing distributions.


Stats ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-45
Author(s):  
Vasili B.V. Nagarjuna ◽  
R. Vishnu Vardhan ◽  
Christophe Chesneau

In this paper, a new five-parameter distribution is proposed using the functionalities of the Kumaraswamy generalized family of distributions and the features of the power Lomax distribution. It is named as Kumaraswamy generalized power Lomax distribution. In a first approach, we derive its main probability and reliability functions, with a visualization of its modeling behavior by considering different parameter combinations. As prime quality, the corresponding hazard rate function is very flexible; it possesses decreasing, increasing and inverted (upside-down) bathtub shapes. Also, decreasing-increasing-decreasing shapes are nicely observed. Some important characteristics of the Kumaraswamy generalized power Lomax distribution are derived, including moments, entropy measures and order statistics. The second approach is statistical. The maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters are described and a brief simulation study shows their effectiveness. Two real data sets are taken to show how the proposed distribution can be applied concretely; parameter estimates are obtained and fitting comparisons are performed with other well-established Lomax based distributions. The Kumaraswamy generalized power Lomax distribution turns out to be best by capturing fine details in the structure of the data considered.


Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1114
Author(s):  
Guillermo Martínez-Flórez ◽  
Roger Tovar-Falón ◽  
María Martínez-Guerra

This paper introduces a new family of distributions for modelling censored multimodal data. The model extends the widely known tobit model by introducing two parameters that control the shape and the asymmetry of the distribution. Basic properties of this new family of distributions are studied in detail and a model for censored positive data is also studied. The problem of estimating parameters is addressed by considering the maximum likelihood method. The score functions and the elements of the observed information matrix are given. Finally, three applications to real data sets are reported to illustrate the developed methodology.


Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (16) ◽  
pp. 1850
Author(s):  
Rashad A. R. Bantan ◽  
Farrukh Jamal ◽  
Christophe Chesneau ◽  
Mohammed Elgarhy

Unit distributions are commonly used in probability and statistics to describe useful quantities with values between 0 and 1, such as proportions, probabilities, and percentages. Some unit distributions are defined in a natural analytical manner, and the others are derived through the transformation of an existing distribution defined in a greater domain. In this article, we introduce the unit gamma/Gompertz distribution, founded on the inverse-exponential scheme and the gamma/Gompertz distribution. The gamma/Gompertz distribution is known to be a very flexible three-parameter lifetime distribution, and we aim to transpose this flexibility to the unit interval. First, we check this aspect with the analytical behavior of the primary functions. It is shown that the probability density function can be increasing, decreasing, “increasing-decreasing” and “decreasing-increasing”, with pliant asymmetric properties. On the other hand, the hazard rate function has monotonically increasing, decreasing, or constant shapes. We complete the theoretical part with some propositions on stochastic ordering, moments, quantiles, and the reliability coefficient. Practically, to estimate the model parameters from unit data, the maximum likelihood method is used. We present some simulation results to evaluate this method. Two applications using real data sets, one on trade shares and the other on flood levels, demonstrate the importance of the new model when compared to other unit models.


2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 953-978
Author(s):  
Mustafa Ç. Korkmaz ◽  
G. G. Hamedani

AbstractThis paper proposes a new extended Lindley distribution, which has a more flexible density and hazard rate shapes than the Lindley and Power Lindley distributions, based on the mixture distribution structure in order to model with new distribution characteristics real data phenomena. Its some distributional properties such as the shapes, moments, quantile function, Bonferonni and Lorenz curves, mean deviations and order statistics have been obtained. Characterizations based on two truncated moments, conditional expectation as well as in terms of the hazard function are presented. Different estimation procedures have been employed to estimate the unknown parameters and their performances are compared via Monte Carlo simulations. The flexibility and importance of the proposed model are illustrated by two real data sets.


Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1226
Author(s):  
Inmaculada Barranco-Chamorro ◽  
Yuri A. Iriarte ◽  
Yolanda M. Gómez ◽  
Juan M. Astorga ◽  
Héctor W. Gómez

Specifying a proper statistical model to represent asymmetric lifetime data with high kurtosis is an open problem. In this paper, the three-parameter, modified, slashed, generalized Rayleigh family of distributions is proposed. Its structural properties are studied: stochastic representation, probability density function, hazard rate function, moments and estimation of parameters via maximum likelihood methods. As merits of our proposal, we highlight as particular cases a plethora of lifetime models, such as Rayleigh, Maxwell, half-normal and chi-square, among others, which are able to accommodate heavy tails. A simulation study and applications to real data sets are included to illustrate the use of our results.


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