Evaluating Line Capacity with an Analytical UIC Code 406 Compression Method and Blocking Time Stairway

Abstract

Railways around the world are experiencing growth in traffic flow, but the problem concerning how to optimize the utilization of capacity is still demands significant research. To accommodate the increasing traffic demand, the high-speed railway operator in China is interested in understanding the potential benefit of adopting reasonable headway to balance the safety and efficiency of train operations. In this study, a compress timetable scheduling model based on the UIC Code 406 method is presented to evaluate the line capacity. In this model, train headway is not pre-fixed as in the existing research, but considers the actual operating conditions and is calculated using actual running data. The results of the case study show that refined headway calculations generally have positive capacity effects.

Automated Construction of Mesoscopic Railway Infrastructure Models Supporting Station Throat Capacity Assessment

“… The regional scale is used when assessing rail traffic within regions [9] or large railway junctions [10], where the various rail lines and railway stations are discerned.  The railway line scale or railway station scale is typically used to examine the traffic capacity of a specific railway line [11] or a specific railway station [12].  The track throat scale is used when separately assessing the capacity of station throat (both within a railway station and potentially also beyond) [13,14].…”

“… UIC 406 methodology [2], covering both capacity assessment for railway lines [11,16] and for railway stations [17,18,19] by using the compression method.  The methodology used by Deutsche Bahn AG (DB AG -German Railways), which is primarily based on theoretical work done at the RWTH Aachen University [13,20,21].…”

Impact of signalling system on capacity – Comparing legacy ATC, ETCS level 2 and ETCS hybrid level 3 systems

“…Headway-based methods are commonly used to calculate capacity, most of which use the blocking time model (Lai et al, 2015). Minimum headway is the minimum required time interval between two following trains (Pachl and Thomas White, 2004;Wang et al, 2020) and is the basis for estimating capacity (FTIA, 2019). Evaluating minimum headway using blocking time sequences requires calculating the blocking time components, which include: 1) Sighting distance and reaction time (in conventional signalling systems with cab a signalling system to observe the signal aspect), 2) Route setting time, 3) Approaching time from distant signal to main signal (in a conventional signalling system), and from indication point to main signal (in cab signalling systems), 4) Physical block occupation time (dependent on permitted speed), 6) Block section clearing time (which depends on the length and overlap of rolling stock), and 7) Block section release time.…”

“…The examples are based on blocking time sequences in a headway-based model. Headway based models are suitable for calculating infrastructure's capacity with heterogeneous traffic and they are commonly based on blocking time models (Lai et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2020).…”