Dr.-Ing. Christopher Szymula

Dr.-Ing. Christopher Szymula is a real railway enthusiast and started his career as a light rail driver in 2010. After successfully finishing his studies of traffic and transportation engineering, he became a PhD-student at the chairs of railway operations and traffic flow science at the “Friedrich List” faculty of traffic and transportation sciences. He successfully graduated in 2024. In parallel, he was optimizing public transit in Leipzig as traffic engineer and also led the team of transportation technology at Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe (LVB). Since January 2026, Christopher works full time at the chair of railway operations. His research interests span the topics of railway network capacity, network resilience, multimodal disruption management and AI-based problem reduction. Furthermore, he still collects on-board evidence as tram driver.

Research focus

Railway network capacity
Network resilience
Multimodal disruption managemen
AI-based problem reduction

Publications

7 Entries

2025

Demand-based capacity assessment using mixed integer programmingSzymula, C., Bešinović, N. & Nachtigall, K., 15 Jan 2025, In: Journal of Rail Transport Planning and Management. 33, 17 p., 100502Electronic (full-text) versionResearch output: Contribution to journal > Research article

2024

Quantifying periodic railway network capacity using petri nets and macroscopic fundamental diagramSzymula, C., Bešinović, N. & Nachtigall, K., Jan 2024, In: Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. 158(2024), 28 p., 104436Electronic (full-text) versionResearch output: Contribution to journal > Research article

2023

Promising solutions for railway operations to cope with future challenges — Tackling COVID and beyondWang, Z., Aoun, J., Szymula, C. & Bešinović, N., Dec 2023, In: Journal of Rail Transport Planning and Management. 28, 13 p., 100405Electronic (full-text) versionResearch output: Contribution to journal > Research article
Vulnerability envelopes for railway transport networksBešinović, N. & Szymula, C., 6 Sep 2023, International Conference on Optimization and Decision Science 2023Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/report > Conference contribution

2022

Resilience assessment of railway networks: Combining infrastructure restoration and transport managementBešinović, N., Ferrari Nassar, R. & Szymula, C., Aug 2022, In: Reliability engineering & system safety. 224, 108538Electronic (full-text) versionResearch output: Contribution to journal > Research article

2021

Estimating impacts of covid19 on transport capacity in railway networksBešinović, N. & Szymula, C., 2021, In: European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research : EJTIR. 21, 1, p. 1-18, 18 p.Electronic (full-text) versionResearch output: Contribution to journal > Research article

2020

Passenger-centered vulnerability assessment of railway networksSzymula, C. & Bešinović, N., Jun 2020, In: Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. 136, p. 30-61, 32 p.Electronic (full-text) versionResearch output: Contribution to journal > Research article

Researcher

Mr Dr.Ing. Christopher Szymula

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Chair of Railway Operations

work

Visiting address:

Potthoffbau, POT 110 Hettnerstraße 1

01062 Dresden

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