Methodology for the development of railway operating plans

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to determine the methodology to be followed for the optimization of railway transport services supply in a railway line selected as scope of the study. To carry out this optimization, it is vitally important to have a high-quality database, which includes consolidated technical information. This database will be made up of different items, which will refer to aspects related to the infrastructure (equipment, alignments, slopes, speeds, etc.) and to its traffic type (passengers, freights or mixed). Furthermore, a geographic database must be considered, in order to the railway line will be digitized from a satellite image, and on which all the items included in the database that are relevant for the development of the operating plan will be spatially captured. Once the data is collected, gear simulations are carried out with commercial times and the calculation of energy consumption for each rolling stock. This allows us to know the commercial times that would be registered on the line with different trains and consumption, in order to determine the optimal material that would be of interest for commercial exploitation. Through the elaboration of traffic meshes, the economic balance of the operator is calculated for different service offers, until the one that the operator considers optimal is obtained. Likewise, it provides production results and operating costs. This methodology focuses on the maximization of the railway transport capacity to attract potential passengers from other modes that could be more environmentally aggressive. For this reason, the reduction of the energy consumption by taking advantage of braking energy is a key issue. The main objective of carrying out a railway operating plan is to promote the use of rail transport by improving the service, both quantitatively and in terms of quality, by reducing travel and waiting times, increasing supply and reducing operating costs. Therefore, to carry out said optimization of existing or newly created passenger services, an analysis of the current situation of both services and infrastructure must be carried out, an estimate of the demand that would involve the incorporation or elimination services, and finally an economic analysis.