Reliability and heterogeneity of railway services

Reliability is one of the key factors in transportation, both for passengers and for cargo. This paper examines reliability in public railway systems. Reliability of railway services is a complex matter, since there are many causes for disruptions and at least as many causes for delays to spread around in space and time. One way to increase the reliability is to reduce the propagation of delays due to the interdependencies between trains. In this paper we attempt to decrease these interdependencies by reducing the running time differences per track section, i.e. by creating more homogeneous timetables. Because of the complexity of railway systems, we use network wide simulation for the analysis of the alternative timetables. We report on both theoretical and practical cases. Besides a comparison of different timetables, also general timetabling principles are deduced.heterogeneity;simulation;reliability;transportation;railways

Operations research in passenger railway transportation

In this paper, we give an overview of state-of-the-art OperationsResearch models and techniques used in passenger railwaytransportation. For each planning phase (strategic, tactical andoperational), we describe the planning problems arising there anddiscuss some models and algorithms to solve them. We do not onlyconsider classical, well-known topics such as timetabling, rollingstock scheduling and crew scheduling, but we also discuss somerecently developed topics as shunting and reliability oftimetables.Finally, we focus on several practical aspects for each of theseproblems at the largest Dutch railway operator, NS Reizigers.passenger railway transportation;operation research;planning problems

A Review of Rail Research Relevant to the Case for Increased Rail Investment.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of rail transport research which has a bearing on the case of increased rail investment. The paper focuses on research which has been conducted on the demand for rail travel, both passenger and freight, rather than the supply side or new technology. The aim is to identify where we believe there to be significant gaps in knowledge and key areas in which further research is required are outlined. The paper deals with the following issues: the investment and funding mechanisms that currently exist for rail; the extent to which changes in the fare and service quality of rail affect the demand for rail travel and also the demand for air and road travel; the environmental and congestion benefits of diverting traffic from road and air to rail; and the links between rail investment and economic development. Where appropriate, the discussion considers inter-urban travel, suburban travel, light rail transit and freight transport separately

An investigation into the feasibility and potential benefits of shared taxi services to commuter stations

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Train-scheduling optimization model for railway networks with multiplatform stations

This paper focuses on optimizing the schedule of trains on railway networks composed of busy complex stations. A mathematical formulation of this problem is provided as a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP). However, the creation of an optimal new timetable is an NP-hard problem; therefore, the MILP can be solved for easy cases, computation time being impractical for more complex examples. In these cases, a heuristic approach is provided that makes use of genetic algorithms to find a good solution jointly with heuristic techniques to generate an initial population. The algorithm was applied to a number of problem instances producing feasible, though not optimal, solutions in several seconds on a laptop, and compared to other proposals. Some improvements are suggested to obtain better results and further improve computation time. Rail transport is recognized as a sustainable and energy-efficient means of transport. Moreover, each freight train can take a large number of trucks off the roads, making them safer. Studies in this field can help to make railways more attractive to travelers by reducing operative cost, and increasing the number of services and their punctuality. To improve the transit system and service, it is necessary to build optimal train scheduling. There is an interest from the industry in automating the scheduling process. Fast computerized train scheduling, moreover, can be used to explore the effects of alternative draft timetables, operating policies, station layouts, and random delays or failures.Postprint (published version

Evaluation of the spatial impacts of improved connectivity from urban transport investments. A GIS (Geographic Information System) application of the ICON indicator for urban areas.

A well-designed urban public transport policy provides significant benefits: reduces congestion and costs, and decreases the number of accidents and environment impacts. Accessibility indicators are used by planners to assess the spatial effects of their proposals and to identify those areas requiring actions to ensure minimum conditions of service. They are also used in decision making on the implementation of new infrastructure projects or improvement of the existing ones. The paper first reviews the ICON indicator, which evaluates the connectivity of a location to the transport networks as a function of the minimum time required to reach the connection nodes of each network and the utility provided in these nodes. In the interurban ICON these networks include roads, railways, ports and airports. ICON is being used in planning and in project appraisal in interurban contexts to quantify in an understandable way the relationship between transport infrastructure and services endowment and variables that are spatially defined. But it has been seldom used in the urban environment context because its particularities introduce important methodological difficulties. The paper presents the adaptation of the ICON indicator to the public transport endowment of urban areas. It includes (a) the definition of a suitable URBan Indicator of CONnectivity (URBICON) providing a quantified spatial measure of connectivity to the transport networks and (b) an analysis of the possible uses of URBICON in regional, urban and transport planning and in project appraisal, through its integration with other spatial information (population, economic activity) and GIS tools. An application to the case of the city of Barcelona is presented, considering the public transport endowment in the year 2004. The URBICON provides an easy way to detect the areas that were poorly covered by the public transport system in 2004. Some of them are already covered by new or improved infrastructures and services and others should be served by 2014. This possibly shows that the zones detected by the URBICON correspond to those where planners have somehow decided to improve public transport services. URBICON thus appears as a powerful quantitative indicator to support urban planning.

The posssibilities of railway transport utilizing as a backbone network of integrated passenger transport systems

The aspects of utilizing of railway transport as a backbone network of integrated passenger transport systems are solved in the contribution. The basic requirements on this railway transport service are specified in the contribution. The main attention is focused on creating of line structure of the integrated transport systems. The location of interchange points is also accented in the contribution. The theoretical presumptions are also illustrated in the way of convenient practical examples