Purpose With the continuous expansion of railway hubs, increasing functional complexity and growing capacity constraints, the coordinated and efficient utilization of transportation resources – such as stations, lines and maintenance facilities – has become a critical issue for improving hub operational efficiency. This study focuses on the division of functions within railway hubs that incorporate shared stations operating under mixed high-speed and conventional train services. Design/methodology/approach An optimization model for hub functional allocation is developed to achieve efficient resource utilization in hubs containing mixed-operation stations. A node–arc network representation combined with an improved multi-commodity flow model is employed, taking train dwell and operation time within the hub as the optimization objective. A case study is conducted to derive optimized solutions, followed by both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Findings The results indicate that optimizing train operation routes and station assignments within the hub can effectively reduce the total occupation time of train flows and significantly improve resource utilization efficiency. Originality/value The proposed model demonstrates both scientific rigor and practical effectiveness. In real-world operations, it can provide operators with preliminary and proactive functional allocation schemes, help identify key constraints limiting hub capacity utilization and offer decision support for transport plan adjustments or infrastructure and facility upgrades.
Xiang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.