Best Practices in Shared-Use High-Speed Rail Systems, MTI Report 02-02

A high-speed rail system is intercity passenger ground transportation that is time-competitive with air and/or auto for travel markets in the approximate range of 100 to 500 miles, and these systems are increasingly gaining attention in the United States. Many states are developing proposals for new HSR systems designed to solve critical transportation problems, especially the growing congestion on our highway and airport systems. Highspeed rail is also viewed as a way to focus growth and development around stations as well as to serve as a catalyst for economic growth. There is significant international experience in building and operating HSR systems that can be helpful in planning U.S. systems. One of the key challenges for U.S. high-speed rail planning is to take full advantage of foreign experience while ensuring that no degradation of safety or unmitigated environmental effects result from the deployment of foreign technology in North America. Shared-use HSR systems are railroad infrastructure, rolling stock, and operating strategies that are used by both high-speed trains and conventional service (for example, freight, commuter rail, and intercity passenger rail). This research describes shared-use HSR systems, an important strategy for improving the feasibility of highspeed rail. In shared-use HSR, high-speed passenger trains use the same tracks and infrastructure as slower passenger or freight trains. This research report will be most interesting to HSR system planners and managers who want to learn about shared-use techniques. Because many of the strategies used in Europe were found to be based on traditional railroad engineering techniques for increasing capacity and speed, and therefore fairly well known to railroad engineers, the report will be useful to them mainly as a comprehensive listing of potential strategies for improving shared-use operations. The report will also be interesting for those who want to learn more about high-speed rail planning in general

D-MOD Dynamic Modelling of Operator Demand: A new simulator module for the evaluation of signaler's demand

Estimating signaler demand is critical for ensuring signaling workstations are both feasible to run, and acceptable to staff. While human factors tools exist, they are typically manual, time consuming and rely of the skill of an expert. One solution, explored in this paper, is to use signaling simulators to assist in the estimation of demand. Full fidelity signaling simulators are already widely used in the UK. Simulators give the ability to ensure a consistent standard of competency ranging from normal routine tasks to abnormal situations (e.g. faults and failures) monitored by an experienced trainer/assessor. Whilst the original aim of full fidelity simulators was to support training and assessment of signalers, the requirement for an accurate timetable and infrastructure model, and of a realistic workstation Human Machine Interface (HMI), opens up other applications. The aim of the Dynamic Modelling of Operator Demand (DMOD) project is to use the Hitachi Information Control System’s simulation environment (TREsim signaling simulator) to deliver a workstation evaluation tool. The paper will present how the existing elements of simulator have been expanded and utilized for demand modelling, covering the architecture of D-MOD, the process of selecting and developing demand metrics, and the design of an HMI to deliver a working proof of concept

D-MOD Dynamic Modelling of Operator Demand: a new simulator module for the evaluation of signaler’s demand

Estimating signaler demand is critical for ensuring signaling workstations are both feasible to run, and acceptable to staff. While human factors tools exist, they are typically manual, time consuming and rely of the skill of an expert. One solution, explored in this paper, is to use signaling simulators to assist in the estimation of demand. Full fidelity signaling simulators are already widely used in the UK. Simulators give the ability to ensure a consistent standard of competency ranging from normal routine tasks to abnormal situations (e.g. faults and failures) monitored by an experienced trainer/assessor. Whilst the original aim of full fidelity simulators was to support training and assessment of signalers, the requirement for an accurate timetable and infrastructure model, and of a realistic workstation Human Machine Interface (HMI), opens up other applications. The aim of the Dynamic Modelling of Operator Demand (DMOD) project is to use the Hitachi Information Control System’s simulation environment (TREsim signaling simulator) to deliver a workstation evaluation tool. The paper will present how the existing elements of simulator have been expanded and utilized for demand modelling, covering the architecture of D-MOD, the process of selecting and developing demand metrics, and the design of an HMI to deliver a working proof of concept

Corporate governance, moral hazard and conflict of interest in Italian universal banking, 1914-1933

Universal banking is widely held to enjoy comparative advantages in corporate finance. Recent theories of financial intermediation argue that 'insider systems' are better suited to effectively deal with long-term growth and moral hazard problems. However, little attention (if any) is usually paid to corporate governance problems that are specific to universal banking. How can banks' ownership structure and agency problems influence their ability to address longterm growth and moral hazard problems? Under which institutional arrangements, incentives and constraints can universal banking effectively realize its potential? The paper looks at such issues through the experience of interwar Italy. The evolution of universal banking in the 1920s emerges as heavily exposed to potentially serious problems of moral hazard and conflicts of interest, due to inefficient corporate governance, lack of external controls and a moral-hazard-enhancing institutional set-up. These factors may distort bank managers' incentives, affect strategic trade-offs and lead to unsound banking. The findings are consistent with that part of corporate governance literature which points to the potential for moral hazard and conflicts of interest inherent to universal banking and emphasise the conditional and historically-specific nature of its alleged benefits

D-MOD Dynamic Modelling of Operator Demand: a new simulator module for the evaluation of signaler’s demand

Estimating signaler demand is critical for ensuring signaling workstations are both feasible to run, and acceptable to staff. While human factors tools exist, they are typically manual, time consuming and rely of the skill of an expert. One solution, explored in this paper, is to use signaling simulators to assist in the estimation of demand. Full fidelity signaling simulators are already widely used in the UK. Simulators give the ability to ensure a consistent standard of competency ranging from normal routine tasks to abnormal situations (e.g. faults and failures) monitored by an experienced trainer/assessor. Whilst the original aim of full fidelity simulators was to support training and assessment of signalers, the requirement for an accurate timetable and infrastructure model, and of a realistic workstation Human Machine Interface (HMI), opens up other applications. The aim of the Dynamic Modelling of Operator Demand (DMOD) project is to use the Hitachi Information Control System’s simulation environment (TREsim signaling simulator) to deliver a workstation evaluation tool. The paper will present how the existing elements of simulator have been expanded and utilized for demand modelling, covering the architecture of D-MOD, the process of selecting and developing demand metrics, and the design of an HMI to deliver a working proof of concept

Tenth Workshop and Tutorial on Practical Use of Coloured Petri Nets and the CPN Tools Aarhus, Denmark, October 19-21, 2009

This booklet contains the proceedings of the Tenth Workshop on Practical Use of Coloured Petri Nets and the CPN Tools, October 19-21, 2009. The workshop is organised by the CPN group at the Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark. The papers are also available in electronic form via the web pages: http://www.cs.au.dk/CPnets/events/workshop0

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