Welcome at the homepage of the International Association of Railway Operations Research (IAROR).

5th International Seminar on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis RailKopenhagen2013
The 5th seminar will be held on May 13 – 15, 2013 in Kopenhagen, Denmark. More information will be published in due course.
4th International Seminar on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis RailRome2011
On 16 – 18 February 2011, the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy, hosted about 130 participants from all over the world at the 4th International Seminar on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis 'RailRome2011'. Participants from 55 countries from universities, railway operators, railway infrastructure managers, research institutes, consulting companies, and public administrations made their contributions in 14 parallel sessions.
In total 56 talks on the topics capacity, timetabling, rescheduling, delays and freight were given.
Keynote speeches were given by Giovanni Costa, Technical Director RFI, and Fabio Senesi, Agenzia Nazionale Sicurezza della Ferrovie.
A very interesting technical visits to the ERTMS Traffic control Centre, Rome, and a travel on the high-speed Train Rome - Naples were offered to the participants.
The members of the organising committee and of the IAROR Board selected the presentation by Dr. Giorgio Medeossi (University of Trieste) about the 'Implementation of stochastic blocking times to support timetable planning' as winner of the Young Researcher Award (worth EUR 2'500). The IAROR Board will also nominate selected papers for a special issue in the new Journal of Rail Transport Planning & Management (JRTPM, Elsevier).
The Board of IAROR as well as the chair were re-elected and consists of I.A. Hansen/the Netherlands (President), E. Wendler/Germany (Vice-President), A. Radtke/Germany, J. Rodriguez/France, A. Wardrop/Australia, T. White/United States, A. Landex/Denmark, S. Ricci/Italy, M. Lüthi/Switzerland, N. Tomii/Japan and D. Hürlimann/Switzerland. D. Pacciarelli/Italy and J. Preston/UK were elected as new IAROR Board members. R. Watson/UK and A. H. Kaas/Denmark resigned from the IAROR Board.
The 5th seminar will be held on February 2013 in Kopenhagen, Denmark.
Aims and scope of IAROR
The International Association of Railway Operations Research was founded on 8 June 2005 during the 1st International Seminar on Railway Operations Modeling and Analysis at Delft University of Technology and decided on the following mission statement:
IAROR combines the expertise of academic and professional railway research with the aim of:
  • enhancing the quality of service for railway passengers and customers
  • improving the effectiveness and efficiency of capacity management, timetabling, traffic management and
  • ensuring the safety of railway operations.
The revolutionary process of wide spread integration of artificial intelligence, computer science and telecommunications in the design of timetables, train detection and integrity, dispatching, signalling, interlocking, train control, traffic regulation, and ultimately automatic train operation creates great opportunities for increasing the capacity of railway infrastructure, optimising the use of rolling stock and making passenger and freight transport by rail more competitive.
IAROR stimulates innovative theoretical approaches, high-tech concepts, new technological developments and dynamic decision support systems that contribute to a higher flexibility, performance and punctuality of trains operating in heterogeneeous networks (lines and junctions). IAROR contributes to the development of new international standards for railway capacity and traffic management by integration of the state-of-the-art from different scientific disciplines as engineering, mathematics, physics, economics and computer science.
IAROR aims at becoming the Network of Excellence in the field of railway operations research and an acknowledged advisor to governments, railway infrastructure managers, train operating companies and the industrial suppliers with regard to the development and evaluation of research programs, innovation strategies, directives and norms for railway operations
International transfer of knowledge and co-operation will be strengthened by organising the International Seminar on Railway Operations Research (ISROR).