Simulation-Driven Railway Delay Prediction: An Imitation Learning Approach

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Elliker, Clément, Read, Jesse, Vanier, Sonia, Bifet, Albert
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866909973820211200
author Elliker, Clément
Read, Jesse
Vanier, Sonia
Bifet, Albert
author_facet Elliker, Clément
Read, Jesse
Vanier, Sonia
Bifet, Albert
contents Reliable prediction of train delays is essential for enhancing the robustness and efficiency of railway transportation systems. In this work, we reframe delay forecasting as a stochastic simulation task, modeling state-transition dynamics through imitation learning. We introduce Drift-Corrected Imitation Learning (DCIL), a novel self-supervised algorithm that extends DAgger by incorporating distance-based drift correction, thereby mitigating covariate shift during rollouts without requiring access to an external oracle or adversarial schemes. Our approach synthesizes the dynamical fidelity of event-driven models with the representational capacity of data-driven methods, enabling uncertainty-aware forecasting via Monte Carlo simulation. We evaluate DCIL using a comprehensive real-world dataset from \textsc{Infrabel}, the Belgian railway infrastructure manager, which encompasses over three million train movements. Our results, focused on predictions up to 30 minutes ahead, demonstrate superior predictive performance of DCIL over traditional regression models and behavioral cloning on deep learning architectures, highlighting its effectiveness in capturing the sequential and uncertain nature of delay propagation in large-scale networks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_19737
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Simulation-Driven Railway Delay Prediction: An Imitation Learning Approach
Elliker, Clément
Read, Jesse
Vanier, Sonia
Bifet, Albert
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
I.2.0; I.2.6
Reliable prediction of train delays is essential for enhancing the robustness and efficiency of railway transportation systems. In this work, we reframe delay forecasting as a stochastic simulation task, modeling state-transition dynamics through imitation learning. We introduce Drift-Corrected Imitation Learning (DCIL), a novel self-supervised algorithm that extends DAgger by incorporating distance-based drift correction, thereby mitigating covariate shift during rollouts without requiring access to an external oracle or adversarial schemes. Our approach synthesizes the dynamical fidelity of event-driven models with the representational capacity of data-driven methods, enabling uncertainty-aware forecasting via Monte Carlo simulation. We evaluate DCIL using a comprehensive real-world dataset from \textsc{Infrabel}, the Belgian railway infrastructure manager, which encompasses over three million train movements. Our results, focused on predictions up to 30 minutes ahead, demonstrate superior predictive performance of DCIL over traditional regression models and behavioral cloning on deep learning architectures, highlighting its effectiveness in capturing the sequential and uncertain nature of delay propagation in large-scale networks.
title Simulation-Driven Railway Delay Prediction: An Imitation Learning Approach
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
I.2.0; I.2.6
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19737