In this talk we consider robustness of schedules in both liner shipping and passenger railways networks for disturbances in travel and handling times. First we consider possible causes of delay and possible recovery actions. Some actions are the same, like the application of buffer times in the network schedule, and some are different, like the possibility to add extra crane teams to a ship or the speeding up. We show what kind of methods can be used to optimize buffer times, both in case the total buffer time is fixed and one in which it can be varied. The methods developed so far have found their application in railway network schedules and we will indicate how they can be applied in liner networks. Finally we will also consider the estimation of the effect of delays on terminal scheduling.

Rommert Dekker is a full professor of Operations Research and quantitative Logistics at the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He has published more than 100 papers in Management Science, Transportation Science, Transportation Research B,E, Naval Research Logistics, European Journal of Operational Research etc on a variety of logistical and transportation problems. He has been on the forefront of developing reverse logistics in Europe. His work on transportation has been stimulated by problems occurring in the Port of Rotterdam and at the Netherlands Railways. He has supervised over 50 Master student projects in industry and has been teaching in Rennes (Fr), Incheon (Korea) and Singapore for NOL.