Just-in-Time Railway Transportation of Thermal Coal considering safety inventory and uncertain demand

Based on the uncertainty of power plant thermal coal demand, the thermal coal demand in the past five years is fitted through curve fitting combined with sliding window. The fitting function prediction results obtained by training samples are compared with the test samples, and the fitting function with the best test results is selected. This function is used to forecast thermal coal demand in the coming months and study the railway thermal coal transportation scheme. The uncertain demand of power plant is transformed into a deterministic problem by fitting prediction. With the coal inventory model of power plant, Just-In-Time (JIT) railway transportation model was constructed, and strict constraints were transformed into minimum safety inventory constraints. Calculation method of replenishment inventory point is given. The calculation results show that under the condition of JIT railway transportation, schemes of through train operation with seasonal variations are formulated with the uncertainty of thermal coal demand. Flexible train formation makes thermal coal demand of power plant match with the total train traffic volume, which could greatly reduce inventory cost of power plant.