Sander Van Aken

10th Best Paper of the 8th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis (RailNorrköping2019) International Association of Railway Operations Research (IAROR) Jul 2019 For the paper "Optimal Timetables in case of Temporarily Unavailable Tracks", which is a synopsis of my MSc. thesis, supervised by dr. Sofie Van Thielen and prof.dr.ir. Pieter Vansteenwegen.

1st place TRA Visions 2018 Young Researcher Competition - Rail Category TRAvisions Apr 2018 A European academic student competition with the goal of stimulating the interest among young researchers and students in the field of sustainable surface transport. Together with Patrick Looij and Nikola Besinovic, we submitted our research on Optimizing Railway Timetables during Maintenance Possessions (ORTMAP). Out of 24 submitted projects, it was selected as winner in the rail category. More information on: https://www.travisions.eu/TRAVisions/

TML Thesis Prize 2017 Transport & Mobility Leuven Oct 2017 Winner of the yearly thesis prize awarded by Transport & Mobility Leuven for my thesis "Optimal timetables for temporarily unavailable tracks". The award aims at MSc. theses within the field of transportation and mobility.http://www.tmleuven.be/thesisprijs/home.htm

8th Best Paper of the 7th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis (RailLille2017) International Association of Railway Operations Research (IAROR) Apr 2017 For the work "Solving Large-Scale Train Timetable Adjustment Problems under Infrastructure Maintenance Possessions ", co-authored by Nikola Bešinović and prof. dr. Rob Goverde. This is a result of the work I conducted during a one-month internship at NS, in cooperation with Gerben Scheepmaker and Jasper Engel.

Winner of Quintiq's ComBUStion Challenge Quintiq Feb 2017 Quintiq's ComBUStion challenge is a worldwide monthly competition in which a bus driver schedule, subject to a set of constraints and penalties, has to be determined. Candidates should achieve the best possible solution, ties are settled based on the time required to solve the problem.For this purpose, I developed a mixed-integer linear programme, which was solved be a commercial solver (CPLEX), and found the optimal solution. To increase the speed, I automated both the input (reading… Show more Quintiq's ComBUStion challenge is a worldwide monthly competition in which a bus driver schedule, subject to a set of constraints and penalties, has to be determined. Candidates should achieve the best possible solution, ties are settled based on the time required to solve the problem.For this purpose, I developed a mixed-integer linear programme, which was solved be a commercial solver (CPLEX), and found the optimal solution. To increase the speed, I automated both the input (reading data from the screen) as well as the output (automated clicking) using Matlab. Show less

3rd place Flemish Chemistry Olympiad (Vlaamse Chemie Olympiade) 2010 Vlaamse Olympiades voor Natuurwetenschappen May 2010 Competition for last-year secondary school students, including theoretical and practical tests