RECIFE: A MCDSS for Railway Capacity Evaluation

A wide variety of software packages has been developed specially to support multiple criteria decision making, more commonly called Multi Criteria Decision Support System (MCDSS). Such a software uses a user friendly human-computer interface in order to assist a decision maker at various stages of structuring and solving decision problems within an interactive process. The RECIFE software presented in this paper is a MCDSS dedicated to the railway capacity evaluation problem at the station or junction level. It has been developed to help experts in railway transportation. The decision support process is organised around two criteria: the first criterion aims to maximize the number of train scheduled, and the second criterion maximizes the stability of the timetables. Functionalities of RECIFE are illustrated using a real traffic of trains crossing the Pierrefitte-Gonesse junction, located on the North of Paris.