Methods to Estimate Railway Capacity and Passenger Delays
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Downloaded from orbit.dtu.dk on: Oct 07, 2021 Methods to estimate railway capacity and passenger delays Landex, Alex Publication date: 2008 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link back to DTU Orbit Citation (APA): Landex, A. (2008). Methods to estimate railway capacity and passenger delays. Technical University of Denmark. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. 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Methods to estimate railway capacity and passenger Infrastructure delays 100% 95,4% 95,4% 92,7% 90,6% 90,3% 91,4% 86,8% 90% 84,0% 85,0% 80,5% Alex Landex 80% 70% 60% 50% EltiEvaluation PhD thesis 40% 30% 22,5% 22,5% 19,6% 20% 15,7% 17,3% Timetable 10% November 2008 0% Morning Day Afternoon Other time Total Train regularity [%] Passenger regularity [%] Arrivals before time [%] Passenger delay model Simu la tion UIC 406 capacity analysis Methods to estimate railway capacity and passenger delays PhD thesis Alex Landex Technical University of Denmark Department of Transport Supervisor: Professor Otto Anker Nielsen Technical University of Denmark Department of Transport Co-supervisor: External lecturer Anders H. Kaas Atkins Danmark A/S & Technical University of Denmark Department of Transport November 2008 Preface This PhD thesis is the result of research work at the Department of Transport at the Technical University of Denmark. I started working in this department in 2003 when I worked on research projects and taught courses in Rail Traffic Engineering, Public Transport Planning and ArcGIS and Traffic Planning. One year later, I started this project on “Methods to estimate railway capacity and passenger delays”. The work was conducted on a ¾ time basis to allow me to continue teaching the courses in Rail Traffic Engineering and Public Transport Planning. Writing this thesis has been a lot of hard work, but it has also been a lot of fun, for most of the time. Railways are not only the topic of my thesis but have also been, and still are, a hot topic in the media: underinvestment in the railway network, reduced speed on the main railway lines, new IC4 trains not put into service and, above all, delays. When studying railway systems and, in my case, “Methods to estimate railway capacity and passenger delays”, there is always something to talk about at parties! Despite the fact that a PhD thesis does not get finished during social chats, there is no chance of finishing the job without other people. In fact, the summary below is just an attempt to cover the people and organizations whose inputs have been truly indispensable for completing my dissertation. First of all, I would like to thank my co-supervisor Anders H. Kaas, without his introductory course on railway systems I would never have started writing this thesis. Anders is also thanked for being there when I needed motivation, new ideas or a good academic and/or scientific discussion during the work on this thesis—also before he became co-supervisor. Professor Otto Anker Nielsen is also thanked for supervising the project. Bernd Schittenhelm was always ready for a good discussion about my work, and I enjoyed his provocative contributions and practical views on the subject. His proofreading of articles and the thesis has contributed to improving the output, and he has also given me many useful ideas for further research. I am happy that Bernd has now decided to become a PhD student himself, and I am looking forward to many new, rewarding discussions. My thanks to Rapidis Ltd, who coded the passenger delay model presented in this thesis. Also thanks to Rasmus Dyhr Frederiksen, Bjarke Brun and Philip Bagger from Rapidis Ltd and Stephen Hansen from DTU Transport (now Rapidis Ltd), who assisted in making the (different versions of) the 3rd generation passenger delay model work together with RailSys. The project has given rise to a series of articles and academic discussions. I thank all involved, both the people and the organizations. In particular, I want to thank Rail Net Denmark (Banedanmark), the National Rail Authority (Trafikstyrelsen), the Danish State Railways (DSB), and my co-authors on the articles. Also, thanks to all the students on the course Rail Traffic Engineering and all the other persons who (deliberately or unwittingly) asked “tricky” questions about my work. This has been a source of inspiration and also a reminder to explain the sometimes tricky answers in a straightforward way. Things did not always go as planned. And it was in those cases that I was especially thankful to my good colleagues, my friends and my family for their tremendous support. Sten Hansen gave me excellent guidance and advice. He also had a knack of pointing me in the right direction to find the best solutions to get the project moving. Finally, thanks to all those other persons who assisted and supported me over the last four years. And a heartfelt thank you to the Technical Information Centre of Denmark (DTIC) for the invaluable help provided the last months of this project. Without this help, it would not have been possible to finalize this thesis. Alex Landex Kgs. Lyngby, November 2008 DTU Transport, Technical University of Denmark I II DTU Transport, Technical University of Denmark Summary CHAPTER 1 explains the importance of having knowledge about railway capacity and how, over time, it has become possible to operate more trains by improving the infrastructure and rolling stock. Additionally, the aim and structure of the thesis are outlined. CHAPTER 2 describes the difficulties of defining railway capacity, which depends on the infrastructure, the rolling stock and the actual timetable. In 2004, the International Union of Railways (UIC) published a leaflet giving a method to measure the capacity consumption of line sections based on the actual infrastructure and timetable (and thereby also the rolling stock used)—the UIC 406 capacity method. The UIC 406 capacity method can be used in an analytical way determining the capacity consumption as the sum of the occupation time, buffer time, and time supplements. This sum is then divided by the time window observed. In addition to the analytical way of determining the capacity consumption, capacity consumption can be measured by compressing the timetable graphs as much as possible for the line section and then using the compression ratio as a measurement of the capacity consumption. CHAPTER 3 shows how the UIC 406 method can be expounded in different ways. It is, therefore, important to divide the railway line into line sections of the “right” length. The thesis illustrates that it may be reasonable not to divide the railway lines into line sections at all locations as suggested in the UIC 406 capacity method. Not dividing the railway lines into line sections at overtakings may result in additional challenges when working out the capacity consumption. To handle overtakings in line sections, the thesis recommends maintaining the order of the trains (both before and after the overtaking) and allowing for changing the dwell time to the minimum dwelling time for exchange of passengers and/or the needed time for start moving (a freight train) after a complete halt. At crossing stations, line end stations, larger stations with shunting, and junctions, the thesis recommends that attention be paid to conflicting train paths. The crossing station’s lack of ability to handle parallel movement can reduce the capacity of the line section as the dwell time is extended. The line end stations can be limiting for the capacity because not all avoiding lines may be scheduled and/or the layover time is longer than needed. The thesis recommends dealing with this by reducing the layover time to a minimum and by using all possible avoiding tracks. Larger stations with shunting can be difficult to examine due to lack of knowledge of the exact shunting operation. Therefore, the thesis recommends that larger stations should be evaluated according to the published timetable and only the known shunting operations but with a higher quality factor or other time supplements to include the remaining shunting implicitly. At junctions and crossing stations, conflicting train routes can result in reduced capacity for some train paths. Accordingly, the thesis recommends extending the analysis area for crossing stations and junctions to include the entire crossing station and/or junction. For line sections with more than two tracks, the thesis illustrates that attention must be paid to the order of the trains at both the beginning and the end of the line section as otherwise there is a risk of additional overtakings occurring. Furthermore, more tracks can result in uneven capacity consumption. Accordingly, the thesis recommends allowing trains to change from one track to another if there is a large difference in the capacity consumption of the tracks. If tracks are located apart from each other it might be difficult to determine how many tracks a railway line comprises. Therefore, the thesis proposes that the railway line is considered as one line section if there is mainly one-way operation on the tracks and if both corridors are served in both directions and different stations are serviced it should be considered as two lines.