S1—
Multi-disturbance and disruption timetable recovery:
Resolve train delays, infrastructure blockages, temporary speed restrictions, and associated timetable conflicts.
Solving Competition
High-Speed Railway Train Rescheduling Problem Under Unexpected Emergency Scenarios
Competition Problem Statement
High-speed railway train rescheduling · PDF · Version 3.1
Competition Overview
The RailSanya 2027 Problem-Solving Competition, held in conjunction with the 12th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis, addresses high-speed railway train dispatching under operational disturbances and disruptions. Participants are asked to construct feasible, high-quality rescheduling plans for a dense railway network, given a baseline timetable, infrastructure data, operational parameters, and disruption scenarios.
The competition focuses on macroscopic train rescheduling and selected resource recovery decisions. It features three complementary scenarios:
S2—
Disabled-train rescue and clearance:
Coordinate rescue resources and passenger train rescheduling after a disabled train blocks or restricts the network.
S3—
EMU circulation disruption and service recovery:
Restore rolling stock assignments and train services when EMU circulation is disrupted.
The competition welcomes operations research, artificial intelligence, simulation-based optimization, hybrid methods, and other reproducible approaches.
Participation and Registration
Participation is open to students, researchers, and industry practitioners. Teams may include up to five members in total, including the team leader. Each team should submit one official registration form through a designated representative, who is responsible for the accuracy of the team information. Team composition and team names may be updated before the registration deadline; no changes will be permitted afterward.
Registration deadline:
Official Team Registration Form(https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/TX2Mvyi5vn?lang=en-US)
Awards and Conference Participation
| Award | Cash Prize |
|---|---|
| First Prize | €1,500 |
| Second Prize | €1,000 |
| Third Prize | €500 |
Up to three finalist teams will be invited to present their work at RailSanya 2027. All registered members of each finalist team (up to five, including the leader) will receive a waiver of the conference registration fee; attending members must still complete the conference registration procedure. Award-winning teams will also receive medals and certificates.
Cash prizes are awarded per team, not per individual. Unless separately confirmed, travel, accommodation, visa, and other attendance expenses remain the participants’ responsibility. The judging committee may make fewer awards, or no awards, if submission quality is insufficient.
Important Dates
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Announcement and registration opening | October 20, 2026 |
| Competition instances released | October 30, 2026 |
| Q&A period on Kaggle | November 1, 2026 – February 26, 2027 |
| Registration deadline | December 1, 2026 |
| Final solution and report submission | February 26, 2027 |
| Finalists announced | March 13, 2027 |
| Finalist online presentation and Q&A | March 17–19, 2027 |
| Conference presentation materials due | April 7, 2027 |
| RailSanya 2027 conference and winner announcement | April 12–15, 2027 |
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, registration and submission deadlines expire at 23:59:59 Anywhere on Earth (AoE, UTC−12).
Submission and Evaluation
The competition will be hosted on Kaggle. Input data, a validator, a scoring notebook, and detailed submission instructions will be provided with the competition instances. Competition updates, official clarifications, Q&A, and leaderboard information will be posted on Kaggle.
By the final submission deadline, each team must submit solution files, an English technical report (A4 PDF; main text no more than 10 pages), and a runnable implementation with source code, models, parameters, and execution instructions for confidential evaluation by the organizers. Public code release is not required. The code will be kept private, used only for this check, destroyed afterwar the competition is ended, and is remaining in the intellectual property of the authors.
Finalists will participate in an online presentation and Q&A with the judging committee. Final rankings will be announced at RailSanya 2027. Each finalist team is expected to nominate at least one conference presenter; exceptional requests to present remotely are subject to organizer approval.
For detailed problem descriptions, evaluation criteria, competition rules, and the latest updates, please refer to the official Kaggle competition page.
Competition platform:
Competition Organization and Contact
- Chair of the Judging Committee:
Prof. Dr. Francesco Corman,
ETH Zurich
- Problem Owner:
Dr. Zhengwen Liao,
Beijing Jiaotong University
- Competition Assistant:
Peiran Han,
Beijing Jiaotong University
Competition enquiries:
[email protected]