Recovery-Robust Platforming by Network Buffering

We aim at assigning platforms, arrival and departure routes to trains at a station in such a way that the total delay in the system caused by some inevitable, small, seminal disturbances in every-day operations is guaranteed to stay below some minimized bound. To this end we apply the concept of recoverable robustness, in particular network buffering, to the standard train platforming problem. The case study of two major railway stations with high load shows that recovery-robust platforming plans achieve maximal throughput of trains, while substantially reducing, in some cases almost halving, the propagated delay in the system.