Developing a distributed electronic health-record store for India

The DIGHT project is addressing the problem of building a scalable and highly available information store for the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) of the over one billion citizens of India

Capacity assessment of railway infrastructure: Tools, methodologies and policy relevance in the EU context

The transport sector is increasingly faced with several issues related to the rising of traffic demand such as congestion, energy consumption, noise, pollution, safety, etc.. Due to its low external and environmental costs, railway can be considered (together with inland waterways and short-sea-shipping) as a key factor for the sustainable development of a more competitive and resource-efficient transport system (European Commission, White Paper 2011). In order to reinforce the role of rail in European transport , there is a strong need of addressing the efficiency of the system and customers' satisfaction through targeted actions, i.e. rising reliability and quality of service. This becomes particularly pressing as many parts of the existing railway infrastructures are reaching their maximum capacity thus shrinking their capability to provide users and customers a higher or even adequate level of service. Taking also into account that transport demand forecasts for 2030 clearly show a marked increase of rail activity across the whole Europe, we aim to address the issue of rail congestion in the context of relevant policy questions: Is the actual rail Infrastructure really able to absorb forecasted traffic, without significant impacts on punctuality of the system? Would the already planned interventions on the European railway infrastructure guarantee an adequate available capacity and consequently adequate reliability and level of service? To which extent would the coveted competition in an open railway market be influenced by capacity scarcity, mainly during peak hours or along more profitable corridors? An accurate estimation of capacity of the rail network can help answer these questions, leading policy makers to better decisions and helping to minimize costs for users. In this context this report explores the issue of capacity scarcity and sets this issue in the context of other relevant policy issues (track access charges, cost/benefit and accessibility measures, maintenance programmes, freight services’ reliability, external, marginal congestion or scarcity cost for rail, impacts of climate changes, etc.), providing a methodological review of capacity and punctuality assessment procedures. To better explore the real applicability and the time and/or data constraints of each methodology, the study reports some practical applications to the European railway network. Finally in the last section the report discusses the topic from a modelling perspective, as the quantitative estimation of railway capacity constraints is a key issue in order to provide better support to transport policies at EU level.JRC.J.1-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

UWB Radio Wireless Communication System Design for Railway Tunnels

Railway is an economical and comfortable mode of transportation for long distances. Safety, reliability and good quality of service are the main concern of railway industries which are maintained by railway management and communication system. There are several existing management systems like CCCS, ATCS, PTC and many more. With increasing population, demand for railway services also increases. To full fill these demands railway infrastructure has been developing continuously. By implementing latest technologies for railway communication we can make railway transportation safer, efficient, and more accessible. Ultra wideband radio communication system is amongst those very latest and rapidly growing technologies. This research work focuses on the study of UWB radio based wireless communication system for railway tunnels, whose main task is to maintain an uninterrupted data transmission between train driver to wayside controller

Calculation of the detection properties in the binary symmetrical channel

summary:One of the important parts of railway signalling systems design is the safety of communication, achievable - among others - with the error detecting code. Getting evidence of quantitative safety targets, especially the probability of undetected error of the code, is a surprisingly complicated issue. We've analysed 2048 irreducible self-adjoint generator polynomials of the degree 32. More than 70 of these have a maximum probability of failure lower than the standard codes generally used. In this article we present the best of all codes we've analysed

Analyzing and Predicting Railway Operational Accidents Based on Fishbone Diagram and Bayesian Networks

The prevention of railway operational accidents has become one of the leading issues in railway safety. Identifying the impact factors which significantly affect railway operating is critical for decreasing the occurrence of railway accidents. In this study, 8440 samples of accident data are selected as the datasets for analyzing. Fishbone diagram is applied to obtain the factors which cause the accident from the perspective of human-equipment-environment-management system theory. Then, the Bayesian network method was selected to establish a railway operation safety accident prediction model, and the sensitivity analysis method was used to obtain the sensitivity of each variable factor to the accident level. The results show that season, location, trouble maker and job function have a significant impact on railway safety, and their sensitivity was 0.4577, 0.4116, 0.3478 and 0.3192, respectively. Research helps the railway sector to understand the fundamental causes of accidents, and provides an effective reference for accident prevention, which is conducive to the long-term development of railway transportation

Train planning in a fragmented railway: a British perspective

Train Planning (also known as railway scheduling) is an area of substantial importance to the success of any railway. Through train planning, railway managers aim to meet the needs of customers whilst using as low a level of resources (infrastructure, rolling stock and staff) as possible. Efficient and effective train planning is essential to get the best possible performance out of a railway network. The author of this thesis aims, firstly, to analyse the processes which are used to develop train plans and the extent to which they meet the objectives that they might be expected to meet and, secondly, to investigate selected new and innovative software approaches that might make a material difference to the effectiveness and/or efficiency of train planning processes. These aims are delivered using a range of primarily qualitative research methods, including literature reviews, interviews, participant observation and case studies, to understand these processes and software. Conclusions regarding train planning processes include how the complexity of these processes hinders their effectiveness, the negative impact of the privatisation of British Rail on these processes and the conflicting nature of objectives for train planning in the privatised railway. Train planning software is found not to adequately support train planners in meeting the objectives they are set. The potential for timetable generation using heuristics and for timetable performance simulation to improve the effectiveness of train planning are discussed and recommendations made for further research and development to address the limitations of the software currently available

Dispatching and Rescheduling Tasks and Their Interactions with Travel Demand and the Energy Domain: Models and Algorithms

Abstract The paper aims to provide an overview of the key factors to consider when performing reliable modelling of rail services. Given our underlying belief that to build a robust simulation environment a rail service cannot be considered an isolated system, also the connected systems, which influence and, in turn, are influenced by such services, must be properly modelled. For this purpose, an extensive overview of the rail simulation and optimisation models proposed in the literature is first provided. Rail simulation models are classified according to the level of detail implemented (microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic), the variables involved (deterministic and stochastic) and the processing techniques adopted (synchronous and asynchronous). By contrast, within rail optimisation models, both planning (timetabling) and management (rescheduling) phases are discussed. The main issues concerning the interaction of rail services with travel demand flows and the energy domain are also described. Finally, in an attempt to provide a comprehensive framework an overview of the main metaheuristic resolution techniques used in the planning and management phases is shown

Railway operations, time-tabling and control

This paper concentrates on organising, planning and managing the train movement in a network. The three classic management levels for rail planning, i.e., strategic, tactical and operational, are introduced followed by decision support systems for rail traffic control. In addition, included in this paper are discussions on train operating forms, railway traffic control and train dispatching problems, rail yard technical schemes and performance of terminals, as well as timetable design. A description of analytical methods, simulation techniques and specific computer packages for analysing and evaluating the behaviour of rail systems and networks is also provided