Conflict resolution through negotiation in a railway open access market : a multi-agent system approach

Open access reforms to railway regulations allow multiple train operators to provide rail services on a common infrastructure. As railway operations are now independently managed by different stakeholders, conflicts in operations may arise, and there have been attempts to derive an effective access charge regime so that these conflicts may be resolved. One approach is by direct negotiation between the infrastructure manager and the train service providers. Despite the substantial literature on the topic, few consider the benefits of employing computer simulation as an evaluation tool for railway operational activities such as access pricing. This article proposes a multi-agent system (MAS) framework for the railway open market and demonstrates its feasibility by modelling the negotiation between an infrastructure provider and a train service operator. Empirical results show that the model is capable of resolving operational conflicts according to market demand.

Scheduling coordination through negotiation between train service providers in an open railway access market

A schedule coordination problem involving two train services provided by different operators is modeled as an optimization of revenue intake. The coordination is achieved through the adjustment of commencement times of the train services by negotiation. The problem is subject to constraints regarding to passenger demands and idle costs of rolling-stocks from both operators. This paper models the operators as software agents having the flexibility to incorporate one of the two (and potentially more) proposed negotiation strategies. Empirical results show that agents employing different combination of strategies have significant impact on the quality of solution and negotiation time.

Train service timetabling in railway open markets by particle swarm optimisation

Railway timetabling is an important process in train service provision as it matches the transportation demand with the infrastructure capacity while customer satisfaction is also considered. It is a multi-objective optimisation problem, in which a feasible solution, rather than the optimal one, is usually taken in practice because of the time constraint. The quality of services may suffer as a result. In a railway open market, timetabling usually involves rounds of negotiations among a number of self-interested and independent stakeholders and hence additional objectives and constraints are imposed on the timetabling problem. While the requirements of all stakeholders are taken into consideration simultaneously, the computation demand is inevitably immense. Intelligent solution-searching techniques provide a possible solution. This paper attempts to employ a particle swarm optimisation (PSO) approach to devise a railway timetable in an open market. The suitability and performance of PSO are studied on a multi-agent-based railway open-market negotiation simulation platform.

Intelligent negotiation behaviour model for an open railway access market

In an open railway access market, the provisions of railway infrastructures and train services are separated and independent. Negotiations between the track owner and train service providers are thus required for the allocation of the track capacity and the formulation of the services timetables, in which each party, i.e. a stakeholder, exhibits intelligence from the previous negotiation experience to obtain the favourable terms and conditions for the track access. In order to analyse the realistic interacting behaviour among the stakeholders in the open railway access market schedule negotiations, intelligent learning capability should be included in the behaviour modelling. This paper presents a reinforcement learning approach on modelling the intelligent negotiation behaviour. The effectiveness of incorporating learning capability in the stakeholder negotiation behaviour is then demonstrated through simulation.

Application of reinforcement learning in an open railway access market price negotiation

In an open railway access market price negotiation, it is feasible to achieve higher cost recovery by applying the principles of price discrimination. The price negotiation can be modeled as an optimization problem of revenue intake. In this paper, we present the pricing negotiation based on reinforcement learning model. A negotiated-price setting technique based on agent learning is introduced, and the feasible applications of the proposed method for open railway access market simulation are discussed.

Feasibility of open markets for mainline railways in China

For decades, the development, construction, track ownership and operation of mainline railways in China have been overseen by the state-owned authorities. From mid-90’s, the mainline railway management has undergone revamps to revitalize the intra-modal competitiveness of railway transportation and to steer it toward the direction of modern business management. With the rapid economic growth; the large-scale expansion of the mainline network; and the increasing expectation on service, the mainline railways in China require further restructuring. Inevitably, a sustainable approach to ensure business viability and service quality in the next few decades is an imminent challenge. This paper reviews the operations and management of mainline railway in China and discusses the possibility of introducing open access market. Drawing the experiences on railway open markets outside China, the discussions include the need and feasibility of railway open market in China; and the suitability and limitations of different models. Particular considerations will be given to the unique characteristics of the mainline railways in China, where the developments across neighbouring regions are unbalanced; freight and passenger services are of similar demands; and the high-speed train operations are operated with low-speed ones in mixed traffic.

Transmission network expansion planning in full open market considering security constraints

This paper presents a mathematical model and a methodology to solve the transmission network expansion planning problem with security constraints in full competitive market, assuming that all generation programming plans present in the system operation are known. The methodology let us find an optimal transmission network expansion plan that allows the power system to operate adequately in each one of the generation programming plans specified in the full competitive market case, including a single contingency situation with generation rescheduling using the security (n-1) criterion. In this context, the centralized expansion planning with security constraints and the expansion planning in full competitive market are subsets of the proposal presented in this paper. The model provides a solution using a genetic algorithm designed to efficiently solve the reliable expansion planning in full competitive market. The results obtained for several known systems from the literature show the excellent performance of the proposed methodology.

Optimal track access rights allocation for agent negotiation in an open railway market

In open railway access markets, a train service provider (TSP) negotiates with an infrastructure provider (IP) for track access rights. This negotiation has been modeled by a multi-agent system (MAS) in which the IP and TSP are represented by separate software agents. One task of the IP agent is to generate feasible (and preferably optimal) track access rights, subject to the constraints submitted by the TSP agent. This paper formulates an IP-TSP transaction and proposes a branch-and-bound algorithm for the IP agent to identify the optimal track access rights. Empirical simulation results show that the model is able to emulate rational agent behaviors. The simulation results also show good consistency between timetables attained from the proposed methods and those derived by the scheduling principles adopted in practice.

Service bid comparisons by fuzzy ranking in open railway market timetabling

In an open railway access market, the Infrastructure Provider (IP), upon the receipts of service bids from the Train Service Providers (TSPs), assigns track access rights according to its own business objectives and the merits of the bids; and produces the train service timetable through negotiations. In practice, IP chooses to negotiate with the TSPs one by one in such a sequence that IP optimizes its objectives. The TSP bids are usually very complicated, containing a large number of parameters in different natures. It is a difficult task even for an expert to give a priority sequence for negotiations from the contents of the bids. This study proposes the application of fuzzy ranking method to compare and prioritize the TSP bids in order to produce a negotiation sequence. The results of this study allow investigations on the behaviors of the stakeholders in bid preparation and negotiation, as well as evaluation of service quality in the open railway market.

Fatigue crack propagation in rocker and roller–rocker bearings of railway steel bridges

In this work, a method is proposed for rolling contact fatigue crack propagation analysis using contact and fracture theories in conjunction with fatigue laws. The proposed method is used in the fatigue analysis of rocker and roller–rocker bearings of a railway open web girder bridge which is instrumented with strain gages. Using a contact algorithm based on the minimum energy principle for bodies in rolling contact with dry friction, the normal and tangential pressure distribution are computed. It is seen that the most critical location of a crack in bearings is at a point very close to the contact region, as expected.

Fatigue crack propagation in rocker and roller-rocker bearings of railway steel bridges

In this work, a method is proposed for rolling contact fatigue crack propagation analysis using contact and fracture theories in conjunction with fatigue laws. The proposed method is used in the fatigue analysis of rocker and roller-rocker bearings of a railway open web girder bridge which is instrumented with strain gages. Using a contact algorithm based on the minimum energy principle for bodies in rolling contact with dry friction, the normal and tangential pressure distribution are computed. It is seen that the most critical location of a crack in bearings is at a point very close to the contact region, as expected. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The interrelationship between monetary policy and the interbank money market during the financial crisis

Die vorliegende Dissertation besteht aus sechs Kapiteln und trägt zur Forschung in den Bereichen der Finanzmarktpolitik und der Geldpolitik bei. Das zweite Kapitel zeigt die Wechselbeziehung zwischen Geldmarktanspannungen und der Stabilität des Finanzsystems auf. Mittels der theoretischen Literatur werden verschiedene Einflussfaktoren einer aggregierten Liquiditätsnachfragefunktion präsentiert. Das dritte Kapitel untersucht den Informationsgehalt der Ergebnisse der Hauptrefinanzierungsgeschäfte für den europäischen Geldmarkt. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich seit der Finanzkrise der Informationsgehalt der Hauptrefinanzierungsgeschäfte in zweierlei Hinsicht verändert hat. Im vierten Kapitel untersuchen wir die Wirksamkeit der Geldpolitik während der Finanzkrise europäische Geldmarktzinssätze zu steuern. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf eine erhebliche Divergenz zwischen den Zinssätzen und den Erwartungen über die zukünftige Geldpolitik hin. Weiterhin finden wir heraus, dass die unkonventionellen Maßnahmen der EZB für einen Rückgang der Euriborsätze von bis zu 60 Basispunkten verantwortlich sind. Das fünfte Kapitel beschäftigt sich mit der Funktionsweise des besonderen geldpolitischen Instrumentariums der Schweizerischen Nationalbank.

Capital markets and the market structure of foreign investments

Contrary to the long-received theory of FDI, interest rates or rates of return can motivate foreign direct investment (FDI) in concert with the benefits of direct ownership. Thus, access to investor capital and capital markets is a vital component of the multinational’s competitive market structure. Moreover, multinationals can use their superior financial capacity as a competitive advantage in exploiting FDI opportunities in dynamic markets. They can also mitigate higher levels of foreign business risks under dynamic conditions by shifting more financial risk to creditors in the host economy. Furthermore, the investor’s expectation of foreign business risk necessarily commands a risk premium for exposing their equity to foreign market risk. Multinationals can modify the profit maximization strategy of their foreign subsidiaries to maximize growth or profits to generate this risk premium. In this context, we investigate how foreign subsidiaries manage their capital funding, business risk, and profit strategies with a diverse sample of 8,000 matched parents and foreign subsidiary accounts from multiple industries in 38 countries.We find that interest rates, asset prices, and expectations in capital markets have a significant effect on the capital movements of foreign subsidiaries. We also find that foreign subsidiaries mitigate their exposure to foreign business risk by modifying their capital structure and debt maturity. Further, we show how the operating strategy of foreign subsidiaries affects their preference for growth or profit maximization. We further show that superior shareholder value, which is a vital link for access to capital for funding foreign expansion in open market economies, is achieved through maintaining stability in the rate of growth and good asset utilization.

Safeguarding against new privacy threats in inter-enterprise collaboration environments

Inter-enterprise collaboration has become essential for the success of enterprises. As competition increasingly takes place between supply chains and networks of enterprises, there is a strategic business need to participate in multiple collaborations simultaneously. Collaborations based on an open market of autonomous actors set special requirements for computing facilities supporting the setup and management of these business networks of enterprises. Currently, the safeguards against privacy threats in collaborations crossing organizational borders are both insufficient and incompatible to the open market. A broader understanding is needed of the architecture of defense structures, and privacy threats must be detected not only on the level of a private person or enterprise, but on the community and ecosystem levels as well. Control measures must be automated wherever possible in order to keep the cost and effort of collaboration management reasonable. This article contributes to the understanding of the modern inter-enterprise collaboration environment and privacy threats in it, and presents the automated control measures required to ensure that actors in inter-enterprise collaborations behave correctly to preserve privacy.