Optimization of the assignment of tickets for railway networks with large passenger flows

For railway transportation networks that serve traffic demands for many origin–destination pairs and consist of many railway lines that provide passengers with different choices, this paper proposes a mathematical programming model for optimizing the assignment of tickets among the sections of railway lines. The purpose of the model is to maximize the total passenger turnover or the total number of transported passengers within the capacity constraints of vehicles. A typical numerical example, solved using the linear interactive and general optimizer solver, has been designed to illustrate the proposed model. In addition, the ticket assignment schemes based on different goals are compared.