RACE Maintenance Scheduling Module – for the good of the network

Scheduling maintenance is something many tools in the market can do. Very recently RACE has joined the list but in a way that satisfies RACE’s primary purpose – to optimise the entire network.

Network operators have a difficult role trying to maintain a safe, robust network while servicing multiple stakeholders, to best accommodate the trains that need to run to maximise throughput.

To date, RACE has primarily functioned as a tool that considers the demand profile and constraints on a system to create an optimised plan. The output of its optimisation include decisions such as “what train cycles do I choose?”, “when do I open stockpiles?”, or “when should I load vessels?”. Now RACE is able to consider system throughput on an even broader scale and enable planning processes to consider a new class of decision inside the optimisation process – “when do I schedule track maintenance if that maintenance can be moved in time?”

Network operators for the first time have all decision variables at their fingertips within the one powerful solution. They are now able to see how these decisions will impact throughput – for instance if I allow the optimisation process to move maintenance to a different time of day or perhaps a different day altogether, how many additional trains would get to run?

First trials for one of our clients are showing a very promising uplift in throughput when compared with the existing planning process, where maintenance is scheduled independently of demand.

Maintenance scheduling is a new RACE module which is licenced separately and designed to maximise system throughput, automatically factoring in shadows around maintenance events to minimise impact before, during and after maintenance is completed.

For more information, or to book a demo, contact us today.