# Predicting Delayed Train Trajectories on the Dutch Railway Network: Explainable AI Evaluation of Topological, Operational and Weather Features with Tree Based Ensemble Methods

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.34692 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.34692/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Sep 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [A Unified Approach to Interpreting Model Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07874/) (2017)
- [Attention is not Explanation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.10186/) (2019)
- [Attention is not not Explanation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.04626/) (2019)
- [Is Attention Interpretable?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.03731/) (2019)
- [Why do tree-based models still outperform deep learning on tabular data?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.08815/) (2022)
- [The elephant in the interpretability room: Why use attention as explanation when we have saliency methods?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.05607/) (2020)
- [Shapley values for feature selection: The good, the bad, and the axioms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.10936/) (2021)
- [Time series classification of satellite data using LSTM networks: an approach for predicting leaf-fall to minimize railroad traffic disruption](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.11702/) (2025)
- [Predicting Delayed Trajectories Using Network Features: A Study on the Dutch Railway Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.11776/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The reliable prediction of passenger train delays is a critical component of railway management. While contemporary research frequently attempts to maximize absolute accuracy by deploying opaque deep learning architectures, the underlying data mechanics driving longitudinal predictive decay remain underexplored. Consequently, this study provides an explainable temporal robustness analysis of network-wide railway delay prediction. Focusing on the Dutch railway network, this research utilizes interpretable tree-based ensembles to integrate granular topological, environmental, and operational features. The overarching finding establishes that while feature-rich tree-based models improve simultaneous (within-month) prediction, predictive performance systematically degrades when evaluated across non-simultaneous (future) months. Furthermore, multi-horizon SHAP and dispersion analyses explicitly link this degradation to environmental feature volatility and instability within the statistical target definition. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that richer feature sets alone are insufficient to resolve long-term forecasting constraints, underscoring the necessity to transition toward dynamic, season-aware architectures anchored by absolute operational boundaries.