Further Particulars for Research Fellow in Operational Research/Management Science
Applications are invited for the post of Senior Research Assistant/Research Fellow in
Operational Research/Management Science, which is a joint appointment between the
School of Mathematics and the Southampton Business School. You will contribute to the
RSSB-funded research project “Developing Integrated Tools to Optimise (DITTO) Railway
System Performance”. This is a collaborative multi-disciplinary project between the
Transport Research Group in Civil Engineering, the Operational Research Group in the
School of Mathematics and the Management Science Group in the Southampton Business
School at the University of Southampton, the Institute for Transport Studies at University of
Leeds and the Department of Computer Science at Swansea University.
This project will combine and build upon the work undertaken by three of the project teams
in the RSSB/EPSRC Capacity at Nodes programme (Challenging Established Rules for Train
Control, OCCASION and SafeCap) with a view to making a significant contribution to meeting
the requirements of the Future Traffic Regulation Optimisation (FuTRO) programme and to
UK rail- related research more generally. It will contribute to FuTRO by establishing basic
principles and proofs of concept and by developing optimisation formulations, algorithms
and processes that will deliver a step change in rail system performance and help to meet
future customer needs. This will be done by taking into account developments in human
and automatic control on trains and in control centres (particularly related to ERTMS) and by
making better use of data, particularly with respect to time and position of trains. The
proposal contains four inter-related and complementary technical strands, with specific aims
as follows:
1. Safety: Although FuTRO currently resides in the management layer of railway operations,
safety is a fundamental and overriding consideration in operations management and
control. The safety strand of the proposal underpins the traffic management strands,
allowing optimisation activities to proceed in the knowledge that safe operating
conditions are being maintained and that theoretical capacity limits are not being
exceeded. The tools developed will also have generic applications to traffic regulation.
2. Reliability: The trade-offs between the provision of additional train services, and the
resultant increases in capacity utilisation, and the maintenance of service quality are an
area of particular interest within the industry, and this strand of the proposal aims to
quantify these trade-offs so as to develop timetables that optimise capacity utilisation
without compromising service reliability.
3. Dynamic simulation: Micro-level data on the status of individual trains will be combined
to produce an optimal, macro-level outcome, transmitting the system-wide needs back
to the micro- level, so that individual train movements can be optimised within overall
system requirements.
4. Network integration: We will produce optimised timetables that can be adjusted in real
time through dynamic simulation. We will examine the scope for artificial intelligence to
combine our optimisation and simulation tools to produce tractable solutions to realtime traffic control.
You will be heavily involved in elements 2 and 3 of the project, as described above.
 Mathematical Sciences at Southampton unites the study and teaching of pure and
applied mathematics, statistics and operational research into one leading department.
Renowned for the quality of our research, we are one of the broadest communities of
professional mathematicians, students and support staff in the UK.

The Southampton Business School has five Centres of Excellence, namely Decision,
Analytics and Risk, Accounting, Finance & International Banking, Relational Leadership &
Change, Digital, Interactive and Data Driven Marketing, Innovation and Enterprise. The
School runs about 20 postgraduate and eight undergraduate programmes.

CORMSIS (Centre for Operational Research, Management Science and Information
Systems) is one of the largest OR/MS/IS groups in the UK, spanning the Schools of
Mathematics and Management and other interested colleagues. It covers the whole
spectrum of current OR/MS/IS activity from theoretical mathematical developments to
problem structuring and knowledge management. CORMSIS runs a regular seminar
series, which has speakers in all of the main research areas in OR/MS/IS. It also has a
visitor programme that provides funding for visitors so that new collaborations can be
established, and new techniques learned from visitors. For more details see
http://www.cormsis.soton.ac.uk

You will have expertise in at least one of the areas: discrete optimisation; stochastic
optimisation; scheduling; applications in transport. Proficiency in computer
programming is also required.

You will be expected to take up the post on 1 February 2015 or as soon as possible
thereafter.

Interviews will be held in December 2014 or January 2015.

The appointments will be made on the basis of the University's standard terms and
conditions.

Duties, as determined by the line manager, will mainly involve undertaking research on
the DITTO project, and contributing to the efficient management and administration of
DITTO.
Informal enquiries may be made at any time to:
Professor Tolga Bektas
Email: T.Bektas@soton.ac.uk, tel. +44 (0)23 8059 8969
Professor Chris Potts
Email: C.N.Potts@soton.ac.uk, tel. +44 (0)23 8059 3651