Journal of Rail Transport Planning & Management最新文献

Macroscopic traffic flow theory is widely used to analyze the performance and congestion in transportation systems and urban traffic. Currently, the main area of application is road traffic, where fundamental diagrams depicting the relationship between performance parameters such as traffic density, traffic flow and vehicle speed are used to represent traffic regimes and system settings. Research on the applicability for rail traffic systems is only starting to emerge and has mainly focused on mass transit systems and moving block signaling systems, so far. The current paper provides a theoretical analysis of traffic flow properties on unidirectional railway lines. Macroscopic fundamental diagrams are established and used to analyze similarities and differences of traffic flow behavior in railway systems. It is shown how fundamental diagrams allow to pinpoint flow regimes and different phases in train traffic, which can be useful information for system design and operation planning. Railway systems are studied both in a deterministic setting allowing to analyze peak efficiency and in a stochastic setting with perturbations.

In order to improve public transit as a customer-oriented service, it is essential to evaluate service quality from the customers' perspective. Various groups of passengers perceive service quality differently based on their demographic and trip characteristics. In addition to a naïve market segmentation which is based on pre-defined groups, this study proposes a cluster analysis to identify groups with combined characteristics. This paper utilizes a customer satisfaction survey (CSS) to better understand the impact of several attributes on satisfaction perceived by different groups of passengers. 1028 valid survey responses are utilized from a case study that is a mass transit rail in Tehran, a less focused context in the literature. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to identify the most effective attributes in each group. The results indicate that different groups do perceive certain aspects of the service quality differently which underscores the necessity of undertaking a market segmentation analysis by clustering. Despite differences among groups/clusters, passengers will be more satisfied with a secure and convenient transit system. The findings from this study can be used to develop strategies for specific customer groups and evaluate factors that influence customer satisfaction of such groups.

Non-electrified regional railway lines with typically employed diesel-electric multiple units require alternative propulsion systems to meet increasingly strict emissions regulations. With the aim to identify an optimal alternative to conventional diesel traction, this paper presents a model-based assessment of hydrogen-powered propulsion systems with an internal combustion engine or fuel cells as the prime mover, combined with different energy storage system configurations, based on lithium-ion batteries and/or double-layer capacitors. The analysis encompasses technology identification, design, modelling and assessment of alternative powertrains, explicitly considering case-related constraints imposed by the infrastructure, technical and operational requirements. Using a regional railway network in the Netherlands as a case, we investigate the possibilities in converting a conventional benchmark vehicle and provide the railway undertaking and decision-makers with valuable input for planning of future rolling stock investments. The results indicate the highest fuel-saving potential for fuel cell-based hybrid propulsion systems with lithium-ion battery or a hybrid energy storage system that combines both energy storage system technologies. The two configurations also demonstrate the highest reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to the benchmark diesel-driven vehicle, by about 25% for hydrogen produced by steam methane reforming, and about 19% for hydrogen obtained from electrolysis of water with grey electricity.

Most railways use fixed block technology, which could be replaced with moving block technology with associated high cost. It is therefore interesting to gradually upgrade the signalling system exploiting hybrid technologies. This paper aims to investigate the impact on capacity of various signalling systems (including fixed block technology and hybrid technology) using a microscopic simulation tool under scheduled (static) conditions without considering probability functions. To perform comparative analysis between European Train Control System (ETCS) Hybrid Level 3, ETCS Level 2, and the Swedish ATC2 legacy system, three signalling system scenarios are designed and capacity consumption is considered as a performance indicator. The study was performed on the central section of Stockholm's commuter train network with peak hour conditions from the 2020 timetable. The results show that ETCS L2 delivers lower capacity consumption in total compared to the ATC2 legacy system. ETCS Hybrid Level 3 with existing trackside train detection and partially shortened block sections delivers lower capacity consumption compared to ETCS L2 and ATC2. The implementation of hybrid solutions such as ETCS Hybrid Level 3 in addition to allowing for gradual upgrading of signalling systems to the next generation (moving block system) can improve capacity of high-density commuter lines.

This paper addresses the integrated load planning and sequencing problem (LPSP) for double-stack trains. This decision-making problem occurs in intermodal terminals and consists in assigning containers from a storage area to slots on railcars of outbound trains and in determining the loading sequence of the handling equipment. Even though this a relevant operational problem, it has seen no attention in the operations research literature so far. Prior models either focus on single-stack railcars or treat the load planning and sequencing separately. By extending prior work on load planning, we propose two different integer linear programming formulations. We show by an extensive numerical study that we are able to solve instances with up to 50 containers with a commercial general-purpose solver in less than 20 min. A case study based on real data provided by the Canadian National Railway Company highlights that the LPSP can reduce the number of container handlings in intermodal terminals compared to sequential solutions by on average 11.3% and 16.5% for gantry cranes and reach stackers, respectively.

In cities where the urban rail transit (URT) systems do not provide 24-h services, passengers may not be able to reach their destinations if the last train services have closed by the time they arrive at the transfer stations. This paper aims to seek a well-coordinated last train timetable that can transport as many passengers as possible to their destinations (referred to as reachable passengers) and also transport those passengers who cannot reach their destinations (referred to as unreachable passengers) to the stations as close as possible to their destinations. A bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed to maximize the number of reachable passengers and minimize the total remaining travel distance of all passengers. The augmented $\epsilon$-constraint method is applied to generate all Pareto optimal solutions of the bi-objective MILP model. Numerical experiments were implemented in the Chengdu URT network. Results indicate that compared to the current-in-use timetable, the optimized timetable by our methods significantly increased the number of reachable passengers and meanwhile reduced the average remaining travel distance of unreachable passengers. In addition, we discussed two possible strategies to improve passengers’ destination reachability, which are encouraging passengers to arrive early at their origin stations, and optimizing the timetable of last trains and non-last trains at the same time.

When a train passes a red aspect, this is called a Signal Passed at Danger event or SPAD. Sometimes it is easy to identify the SPAD cause but in other cases it is unclear why the incident occurred, especially if the system operated as usual and the train driver was trained and experienced just like his or her colleagues. In previous research, train driver deceleration behaviour has been shown to be influenced by frequent exposure in the previous 14 days to less restrictive and visually similar signal aspects in the same location. Previous exposure can contribute to SPAD causation unless the initial insufficient deceleration is corrected in time. Six years of SPAD data and red aspect approaches in the Netherlands was used to test whether previous exposure to yellow:number aspects corresponds with a statistically significant increase in SPAD incidents if there is a small window for correction available to drivers. The permitted track speed and signal distance influence the size of this window. The results provide evidence for previous exposure as a cause for SPADs and details to identify locations with increased SPAD probability. Changes in infrastructure and timetable design or adding safety measures for these locations can prevent future SPADs.

Recently, the continued growth of passenger demand for high-speed railways and expectations for varied types of train services have posed a great need for designing a railway timetable suitable for dense and heterogeneous train traffic, where train overtaking is necessary for proper capacity utilization. This study develops an efficient genetic algorithm that considers train orders in all sections to better depict train overtaking and impose specific operational rules essential in this context. Train-sequence matrix is chosen as the chromosome encoding, based on which the “exchange + regeneration” matrix crossover operator is innovatively designed that considers the heterogeneity among trains and improves the feasibility of the crossover, which previous one-sequence crossover operators cannot realize. An overtaking-oriented local search heuristic is inserted in the algorithm to facilitate the local improvement. To guarantee the feasibility of the final solution, a conflict resolution procedure with conflict impact area identification is introduced. Tests of the algorithm on several small- and medium-sized cases reveal that it can reach relatively good solutions within a short time. Finally, the algorithm is tested on Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway corridor in China and presents good performance both in efficiency and quality.

Regarding the disposition of metro lines in order to recover from delays, in the literature there can be found two branches of contributions: descriptions of response rules such as expressing (aka skip stop), holding and short-turning together with case studies of their application. And there are fully-automated optimization models that optimize some specified objective function, e.g. minimizing the total train delays.

We are not aware of any study that puts its focus specifically on ring lines (aka circle or loop lines). In the absence in particular of essentially immediate time buffers in turnaround activities in the endpoints, the operation of a circle line is particularly challenging, when comparing it with the common bi-directional lines.

In this spirit, we are collecting response rules that are applicable especially for circle lines. We sketch their impacts on the passengers’ travel experience and on the resource schedules for the rolling stock and staff, and we provide illustrative drawings.

Moreover, we conducted interviews with experts of eleven metro networks that are operating circle lines. We report their answers, which response rules are applied most often. Despite the limited possibilities along circle lines there is a broad repertoire of response action that is taken regularly – somehow surprisingly, one standard general response rule that is often discussed in the literature and in principle applicable to circle lines, too (expressing), is almost never applied in practice.

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of decentralized strategies for dispatching rolling stock and train drivers in a railway system. Such strategies give operators a robust alternative in case centralized control fails due to an abundance of infrastructure or rolling stock disruptions or information system malfunctions. We test the performance of four rolling stock and two driver dispatching strategies in a microscopic simulation. Our test case is a part of the Dutch railway network, containing eleven stations linked by four train lines. We find that with the decentralized dispatching strategies, target frequencies of the lines are approximately met and train services are highly regular without large delays. Especially strategies that allow rolling stock to switch between lines result in a high performance.