Luka Stärk and his team mate Carolin Scholl won the DISPLIB 2025 Competition for real-time train dispatching. Their custom branch-and-bound algorithm solved the difficult scheduling problems, many of them even to proven optimality. The innovative method has a parameterized complexity of O(4^k poly(n)), where k is the number of conflicts and n is the number of operations. The international competition was held in two phases, with problem instances published in October 2024 and February 2025, respectively. The winners were announced at the International Conference on Optimization and Decision Science (ODS 2025), which took place from September 1 to 4 in Milan. Luka Stärk will be researching train dispatching in the MobilityLab at the MODAL research campus starting in November. The photo shows him receiving the award, with the chairs of the Scientific and Organizing Committees of the Competition, Giorgio Sartor and Bjørnar Luteberget, on his left and right, respectively. Congratulations!
