Energy efficiency and integration of urban electrical transport systems: EVS and metro-trains of two real European lines

Transport is a main source of pollutants in cities, where air quality is a major concern. New transport technologies, such as electric vehicles, and public transport modalities, such as urban railways, have arisen as solutions to this important problem. One of the main difficulties for the adoption of electric vehicles by consumers is the scarcity of a suitable charging infrastructure. The use of the railway power supplies to charge electric vehicle batteries could facilitate the deployment of charging infrastructure in cities. It would reduce the cost because of the use of an existing installation. Furthermore, electric vehicles can use braking energy from trains that was previously wasted in rheostats. This paper presents the results of a collaboration between research teams from University of Rome Sapienza and Comillas Pontifical University. In this work, two real European cases are studied: an Italian metro line and a Spanish metro line. The energy performance of these metro lines and their capacity to charge electric vehicles have been studied by means of detailed simulation tools. Their results have shown that the use of regenerated energy is 98% for short interval of trains in both cases. However, the use of regenerated energy decreases as the train intervals grow. In a daily operation, an important amount of regenerated energy is wasted in the Italian and Spanish case. Using this energy, a significant number of electric vehicles could be charged every day

Assessment of the worthwhileness of efficient driving in railway systems with high-receptivity power supplies

Eco-driving is one of the most important strategies for significantly reducing the energy consumption of railways with low investments. It consists of designing a way of driving a train to fulfil a target running time, consuming the minimum amount of energy. Most eco-driving energy savings come from the substitution of some braking periods with coasting periods. Nowadays, modern trains can use regenerative braking to recover the kinetic energy during deceleration phases. Therefore, if the receptivity of the railway system to regenerate energy is high, a question arises: is it worth designing eco-driving speed profiles? This paper assesses the energy benefits that eco-driving can provide in different scenarios to answer this question. Eco-driving is obtained by means of a multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm, combined with a detailed train simulator, to obtain realistic results. Eco-driving speed profiles are compared with a standard driving that performs the same running time. Real data from Spanish high-speed lines have been used to analyze the results in two case studies. Stretches fed by 1 × 25 kV and 2 × 25 kV AC power supply systems have been considered, as they present high receptivity to regenerate energy. Furthermore, the variations of the two most important factors that affect the regenerative energy usage have been studied: train motors efficiency ratio and catenary resistance. Results indicate that the greater the catenary resistance, the more advantageous eco-driving is. Similarly, the lower the motor efficiency, the greater the energy savings provided by efficient driving. Despite the differences observed in energy savings, the main conclusion is that eco-driving always provides significant energy savings, even in the case of the most receptive power supply network. Therefore, this paper has demonstrated that efforts in improving regenerated energy usage must not neglect the role of eco-driving in railway efficiency

Desarrollo de un simulador de tráfico ferroviario sobre cartografía descargada dinámicamente

En las últimas décadas las computadoras se han introducido en la sociedad en todos sus hábitos, en el campo del ferrocarril no ha sido ninguna excepción. El presente documento tiene como objetivo la documentación de un simulador ferroviario, en un entorno virtual, capaz de calcular y presentar la posición de un tren, su velocidad y su consumo, a lo largo de todo su recorrido para los instantes de tiempos calculados. Adicionalmente gracias a las conexiones de red y de alta velocidad es posible acceder a servicios, pesados en cuanto su tráfico, como por ejemplo los servidores de cartografía digital. Estos servidores proveen imágenes de mapas de cualquier casi cualquier parte del mundo de manera instantánea. Por tanto aprovechando este servicio suministrado, se va a crear un simulador que cuando muestre al usuario al usuario las posiciones de los trenes, éstos se van a situar sobre una imagen del lugar donde se encuentran. El simulador desarrollado se encuentra dentro de un proyecto mayor en el que trabaja en su desarrollo un equipo de trabajo del grupo Arcos (Departamento de informática) con Adif. Este documento es resultado de un estudio previo de la tecnología disponible para abordar este reto. También hará un especial énfasis de qué es lo que se desea y de qué modo se debe diseñar. Para finalizar, se presentarán una serie de pruebas realizadas al programa diseñado, se especificará de qué manera ha sido realizado y qué datos de entrada recibe, un presupuesto e ideas para nuevos mejoras.Ingeniería Informátic

Simulación del movimiento de trenes para minimizar el consumo enérgetico y optimización para plataformas multicore

Los avances en computación de los últimos 25 años han promovido la simulación del movimiento y consumo de trenes en circulaciones. El presente proyecto contempla la creación de un algoritmo que simula el movimiento de un tren bajo una infraestructura ferroviaria real. La ejecución de un algoritmo de este estilo supone una gran carga computacional que plantea la necesidad de usar computación en paralelo. En este documento se describen los aspectos que han envuelto la creación del proyecto.Ingeniería Informátic