BIA

Project
Decision Support System

Submitted By:-
Shweta S Bhandari…...(005)
Gunjan Marwaha……..(048)
 INDEX

I. Abstract 1

II. Introduction 2-5

i. Decision Support System……………………….…....2

ii. Features……………………………………….……...3

iii. Types…………………………………………………4

iv. Benefits…………………………………………….…6

III. Case Study 7-12

Indian Railways GIS-based Decision Support System

IV. Bibliography………………………………………….…..13
Abstract

This paper describes the implementation of Phase I of a Long Range Decision-Support

System for the Indian Railways (IR) which has been under development during the last
few years. The system incorporates GIS (ArcView) as a user interface, as means of
storing and retrieving system inventory and facility management data, as a link to
transportation models, and as an interface to a set of evaluation tools for investment and
marketing decisions. This set of functions provides an user- oriented system that has
greatly improved information available to IR managers over the previous system, which
depended on manual, hard copy reports. The system added flexibility and analytic power
as well as spatial data that was not previously available in a timely fashion to managers.
The system has the potential to identify major costs savings in achieving rail line capacity
expansion and contribute to the process of changing IR priorities to achieve more cost-
effective investments and marketing strategies. The paper will describe data base and
modelling issues as well as GIS and analysis issues.
INTRODUCTION

DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS (DSS):

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are a specific class of computerized information system
that supports business and organizational decision-making activities. A properly designed
DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile
useful information from raw data, documents, personal knowledge, and/or business
models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.

Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present
would be:

 Accessing all of your current information assets, including legacy and relational
data sources, cubes, data warehouses, and data marts.
 Comparative sales figures between one week and the next
 Projected revenue figures based on new product sales assumptions
 The consequences of different decision alternatives, given past experience in a
context that is described
FEATURES:
• Assists managers in unstructured/semi- structured tasks
• Supports rather than replace the human Decision Making
• Improves the effectiveness rather than the efficiency
• Combines the use of models or analytical techniques with data access functions
• Emphasizes flexibility and adaptability to respect changes in the decision context
TYPES OF DSS:

A decision support system may present information graphically and may include an
expert system or artificial intelligence (AI). It may be aimed at business executives or
some other group of knowledge workers.

Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present would
be:-

(a) Accessing all information assets, including legacy and relational data sources;

(b) Comparative data figures;

(c) Projected figures based on new data or assumptions;

(d) Consequences of different decision alternatives, given past experience in a specific

context.

There are a number of Decision Support Systems. These can be categorized into five
types:

 Communication-driven DSS

Most communications-driven DSSs are targetted at internal teams, including

partners. Its purpose are to help conduct a meeting, or for users to collaborate.
The most common technology used to deploy the DSS is a web or client server.
Examples: chats and instant messaging softwares, online collaboration and net-
meeting systems.

 Data-driven DSS

Most data-driven DSSs are targeted at managers, staff and also product/service
suppliers. It is used to query a database or data warehouse to seek specific
answers for specific purposes. It is deployed via a main frame system,
 client/server link, or via the web. Examples: computer-based databases that have a
query system to check (including the incorporation of data to add value to existing
databases.

 Document-driven DSS

Document-driven DSSs are more common, targeted at a broad base of user

groups. The purpose of such a DSS is to search web pages and find documents on
a specific set of keywords or search terms. The usual technology used to set up
such DSSs are via the web or a client/server system. Examples:

 Knowledge-driven DSS:

Knowledge-driven DSSs or 'knowledgebase' are they are known, are a catch-all

category covering a broad range of systems covering users within the organization
seting it up, but may also include others interacting with the organization - for
example, consumers of a business. It is essentially used to provide management
advice or to choose products/services. The typical deployment technology used to
set up such systems could be slient/server systems, the web, or software runnung
on stand-alone PCs.

 Model-driven DSS

Model-driven DSSs are complex systems that help analyse decisions or choose
between different options. These are used by managers and staff members of a
business, or people who interact with the organization, for a number of purposes
depending on how the model is set up - scheduling, decision analyses etc. These
DSSs can be deployed via software/hardware in stand-alone PCs, client/server
systems, or the web.
BENEFITS OF DSS:

1. Improves personal efficiency

2. Expedites problem solving (speed up the progress of problems solving in an
organization)
3. Facilitates interpersonal communication
4. Promotes learning or training
5. Increases organizational control
6. Generates new evidence in support of a decision
7. Creates a competitive advantage over competition
8. Encourages exploration and discovery on the part of the decision maker
9. Reveals new approaches to thinking about the problem space
10. Helps automate the managerial processes
Case of Indian Railways GIS-based Decision Support System (1998)

Brief Description of Indian Railways

The Indian Railway is a large system by international standards with 62,000 route
kilometers and transportation revenues of Rs 758 billion (U. S. $21.6 billion) in 1994-
1995. It carried 365 million tons of freight in that year, an increase of 3 % over the
preceding year, which reflects the continuing growth of railway traffic over the last few
years. The railway is a unique mixture of long haul bulk freight operations and high
volume inter-city passenger operations. It is a continent-wide railway with average
freight hauls of about 705 km compared to the European average freight hauls of 200-400
km. It is both a short-haul suburban mass transit railway and a long-haul inter-city
passenger railway.

Despite the growth in rail services and the successful introduction of modern container
operations, there had been a relative decline of rail output to road output over the last 15
years. This reflected the specialization of IR in carrying low-valued, long-haul bulk
cargoes, such as coal and the very low unit revenues from inter-city passenger operations.
Road competition for freight had also been very effective, although it had lessened in the
last two years due to congested road conditions. The planned construction of better
intercity roads and expressways increased the challenge for the Railway to become more
competitive.
Why DSS?
The new economic environment in India had given rise to a growth rate of GDP
averaging 5.6 % per year and growth of 7 to 9 % annually in surface transport demand.
Export growth was averaging 18-21%. This growth was creating pressures on both the
road and rail modes and it was anticipated that the railway will be called on to handle
125-150 million tons of additional freight (a 34-41 percent increase or average annual
growth of more than 6%) and an even faster increase in passenger flows by the year
2000. Therefore, identification and evaluation of the most cost-efficient means for
achieving capacity expansion was a top priority for IR.

With this heavy pressure for growth and a shortage of investment funds, effective
planning tools were needed by IR to provide a comprehensive basis for the screening and
evaluation of proposed improvement projects and to provide better forecasts of traffic for
each corridor, taking into account the competition from road haulage. Since the capacity
expansion alternatives for Indian Railways lay in a complicated combination of
investments, there was a need for relatively sophisticated but cost-effective methods to
determine the relative priorities of system-wide investments. The IR also identified a
need for access to more market information to help it compete for the most profitable
business in the future freight market.
The Long Range Decision-Support System

In 1994, IR management decided to undertake the development of a decision-support

system which would provide the tools to carry out evaluations of all the critical factors
and help set investment priorities that had been missing in the past. The IR called this a
Long Range Decision Support System (LRDSS) and enlisted assistance from the World
Bank for its design and implementation. It was conducted as an institution-building
exercise with a substantial training component, involving the creation of a well-trained
multi-disciplinary LRDSS team supervised by a Steering Committee in the Railway
Board.

The primary objective of LRDSS Phase I was to develop a decision support system
(DSS) for the management of the Indian Railways that would allow it to evaluate
decisions that affect railway capacity in a comprehensive, system-wide, multi-modal
context and to evaluate potentially profitable markets for railway service. The system
must be capable of evaluating a complicated and inter-related set of investments (e.g.,
gauge changing, improved signaling systems, lengthened sidings, urban bypasses, high
horsepower locomotives, low tare weight high axle load freight wagons, and train
operations policies designed to maximize the capacity of the track).

The analysis objectives for the DSS were to:

(a) Forecast traffic flows in total and by major category for freight traffic
and passenger traffic
(b) Eliminate bottlenecks by taking cost-effective measures to improve
utilization of existing track and rolling stock assets
(c) Evolve a least-cost operating strategy for movement of traffic between
pairs of points served by more than one route
(d) Determine priorities among already-sanctioned transport capacity
augmentation projects
(e) Select new, high priority investments for increasing total system
throughput within prevailing budget constraints; and
 (f) Achieve a revenue maximization strategy within broad policies of
transportation on Indian Railways.

To meet these objectives the decision-support system required a set of analytic tools and
models integrated into a user-friendly system with access to a wide range of data. The
most appropriate and cost-effective framework for the DSS was found to be a
combination of commercial simulation software, specially-designed system optimization
software, specially-designed database structure and a Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) which provided both customized dialog with the users and the ability to use a
mixture of map and table-based information to identify and evaluate the best alternatives.
Implementation of the DSS
The analytical tools for the DSS were structured around six key strategic modules, which
were capable of analysis of investments over a 20-year planning period with detailed
analysis for the first five years and for every fifth year thereafter. The six modules were:

a) Traffic Forecasting Module: This module forecasted goods and passenger traffic
demand between major origin-destination pairs for various commodities under
different assumed demand scenarios
b) Facility Performance Module: This module estimated capacity, cost and transit
time for existing and proposed, converted and new rail lines, yards, transhipment
points and other congested facilities. For rail line costs and delay functions, it
used the results of a detailed rail line simulation model (RAILS)
c) Traffic Assignment Module: This module assigned the forecasted traffic and
computed financial costs for the major railway network under different assumed
scenarios of investment and demand. It included a network-wide model based on
non-linear programming
d) Cost-Benefit Analysis Module: This module provided an economic and
financial cost-benefit analysis in summary form for each proposed investment
alternative over a 20-year period under a selected demand scenario
e) Financial Forecasting Module: This module translated the results of the above
modules into a summary of the costs and revenues of IR for each major
commodity group and for passengers.
f) Market Analysis Module: This module stored the results of the shipper survey
and analyzed information on cost and traffic relevant to shipper decisions on the
choice of road or rail for goods movements. It included a basic mode choice
model, calibrated from the shipper survey results.

These modules were all linked together with a GIS-based user interface, which provides
graphics, dialog boxes, spatial analysis tools and other decision-support features.
Initial Results of LRDSS

The initial results of the LRDSS Phase I are of four types:

 Provision of data access to planners and managers that did not exist before;
 Creation of traffic forecasts by origin- destination that did did not exist before;
 Analysis of system bottlenecks, both with existing train routing procedures and
with alternative routings
 Identification of alternative locations for system improvements that could be more
cost-effective than the previously identified alternatives.

The anticipated outputs of Phase II will identify and evaluate even more cost-effective
options for IR management, and give access by managers to an even wider range of data
that they could not access before the LRDSS. With the LRDSS, the preliminary evidence
is that the Railway Board of the IR will have an improved ability to make better decisions
and get more productivity out of their railway system. Phase II will expand that capability
even more.
REFERENCES

1. The Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 41, No. 11 (Nov., 1999), pp.
1077 -1080 Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals on behalf of the Operational
Research Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2582905

2. Cook, Peter, "The Use of GIS in Improving the Cost- Effectiveness in Transport
Investment Decisions: The China Railway Example," Pacific Rim TransTech
Conference Proceedings, Volume II, July 25-28, 1993.