The Flatland challenge competition in 2020 by SBB, DB and SNCF addresses issues of train scheduling and rescheduling and the need to resolve disruptions and delays. It tackles a key problem in the transportation world: How to efficiently manage dense traffic on complex railway networks? Out of over 2’000 submissions from over 700 participants from over 51 countries, we reached the outstanding second place with our model based on a Reinforcement Learning approach.

Similar to last year’s competition, our model was challenged in different grid world environments (Flatlands) simulating unforeseen disruptions and solved them with a dynamic and fully automatic rescheduling of trains. We are proud to be the first runner-up in this challenge, coming in with an excellent result. Our AI model proved to be very effective and efficient: it solved unforeseen incidents quickly, without disrupting larger parts of the network. This will help to increase the transportation capacity of the network without having to physically expand it.

Now, Netceteras AI experts are ready for the next challenge!