A case study in empty railcar distribution

Empty railcar distribution problems are considered to be at the very heart of freight traffic. Whereas mathematical models and theoretical results for corresponding network flow problems are widespread throughout the literature the respective carrying forward into real-world applications still needs to be pushed ahead. In this paper we discuss a case study performed in collaboration with a German railcar rental company. The primary objective is to provide reasonable algorithmic support for a specific empty railcar distribution problem. In this respect the main task lies in comparing a simple heuristic approach with one of the older network flow approaches.