Restoration Model for Cascading Overload Failure in Syncretic Railway Network

The different rail transit systems, such as regional railway and urban rail transit, cooperate to form the syncretic railway network (SRN). With the rapid development of SRN, the limited transportation capacity is inadequate to meet the booming passenger flow during peak hours, where cascading failures caused by large passenger flow become a threat to SRN. This paper adopts a state equation to depict the failure-restoration process and investigates detailed restoration strategies considering the characteristics of recoverable and repeatable failures of stations. Specifically, three different restoration strategies—spontaneous restoration strategy (SRS), active restoration strategy (ARS), and hybrid restoration strategy (HRS)—are proposed, and the varying effects of restoration time, restoration probability, restoration objective, and restoration priority for SRN with ARS are compared. These restoration strategies are applied to the actual SRN in Chengdu, where it is found that HRS has a better effect than other strategies. Furthermore, stations in the metro network with higher passenger flow allocate more restoration resources to improve the robustness of SRN, while the restoration effect of SRN increases noticeably with the restoration coefficient and the reserve coefficient. The restoration strategies presented in this paper can improve the safety management of SRN.