A matheuristic for optimizing skip–stop operation strategies in rail transit lines

In many transit systems, operators use skip–stop strategies to reduce travel time of particular train services by not stopping (skipping) at less densely populated stations. This decision of omitting some stops reduces the travel time for the users within the vehicle and increases the speed of operation, favouring the provision of new transit services where are more necessary. In this work, the best A/B stop–skip patterns for a set of transit services along a railway corridor are determined by means a three-phase methodology that includes the formulation of a nonlinear integer programming inspired in the multiple knapsack problem and the application of a heuristic algorithm based on mathematical properties (matheuristic).