Scheduling of Coupled Train Platoons for Metro Networks: A Passenger Demand-Oriented Approach

Chai, Simin; Yin, Jianqin; D’Ariano, Andrea; Samà, Marcella; Tang, Tao

doi:10.1177/03611981221109175

Cited by 18 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Chai et al considered the time-dependent passenger demand and train loading capacities in virtual coupling. They proposed a linear programming-based approach for virtual coupling to improve line capacity and reduce congestion in metro railway networks [14]. The distance between virtually coupled trains must be small enough for simultaneous arrival to make the concept practicable in metro railway transportation.…”

Section: A Control Approaches For Virtual Couplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Relative Operation-Based Separation Model for Safe Distances of Virtually Coupled Trains

Chai

Wang

Tang

et al. 2024

IEEE Trans. Intell. Veh.

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Virtual coupling is a novel railway transport concept that allows trains to split and join on-the-fly by switching from mechanical to virtual couplers. One of the main challenges in applying virtual coupling in metro railways is to reduce the tracking distance between trains without compromising safety. This paper proposes a relative operation-based train separation model to reduce the safe distance between trains. This model applies a fault tolerance principle. The principle is that the preceding train normally operates for a time interval from its last-known state before initiating an emergency brake to stop the train. A difficulty in applying the proposed model is to predict the boundary of all possible time-position trajectories of the preceding train, which is the reachability problem of a hybrid system. To solve this problem, we formalise the operation of the preceding train by a parameterized hybrid automaton. A polytope-based algorithm is then developed for computing an over-approximated reachable set of the automaton. We compare our approach with a state-of-the-art relative braking distance-based train separation model for virtual coupling on a concrete metro line in Chengdu, China, and evaluate the method with several benchmarks. The results demonstrate that the relative operation-based model substantially reduces the safe distances between trains. Compared to conventional approaches, the proposed model provides a considerable 90.7% decrease in unnecessary waiting time at railway stations for virtually coupled trains and a 4.9% increase in the capacity of the given railway lines.

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Section: A Control Approaches For Virtual Couplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Relative Operation-Based Separation Model for Safe Distances of Virtually Coupled Trains

Chai

Wang

Tang

et al. 2024

IEEE Trans. Intell. Veh.

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“…The train trajectory optimization algorithm not only needs to ensure that every train moves in a safe, punctual, comfortable, and energy-efficient manner, but also needs to coordinate train movement for a safe coupling and decoupling process. The current train cooperative movement strategy under Virtual Coupling relies on the train-following model [8,16,18], which adopts ideas from the vehicle platooning paradigm that has already been proven in road traffic for automated cars. However, there are significant differences between train movement and car movement.…”

Section: Contributions Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Robust cooperative train trajectory optimization with stochastic delays under virtual coupling

Wang

Zhu

2023

IET Intelligent Trans Sys

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Virtual coupling technology was recently proposed in railways, which separates trains by a relative braking distance (or even shorter distance) and moves trains synchronously to increase capacity at bottlenecks. This study proposes a real-time cooperative train trajectory planning algorithm for coordinating train movements under virtual coupling by considering stochastic initial delays. The algorithm uses mixed-integer programming models to estimate the delay propagation among trains, detect feasible coupled-running locations, and optimize the trajectories of the two trains such that they coordinate their speeds to achieve energy-efficient, punctual movements, as well as a safe coupled-running process. A robust optimization method is proposed to capture the stochastic delays as an uncertainty set, which is reformulated to its dual problem. Case studies of planning train trajectories for the classical virtual-coupling scenario suggest that (1) the coupled-running distance is greatly affected by the coordination of train timetables, delays, and safe separation constraints at switches; (2) the coordination of train movements for a coupled-running process imposes extra energy costs; and (3) the proposed method can detect feasible coupled-running locations and produce cooperative speed profiles in short computational times.

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“…Consequently, VC has been analyzed for application in different sectors. Some references present results for high-speed lines [9,20,[49][50][51], whereas others present results for metros [18,[52][53][54][55][56]. There are also several papers that present results for ultrahigh-speeds trains, e.g., Maglev [9] and Hyperloop [57].…”

Section: Control Architecturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtual Coupling in Railways: A Comprehensive Review

Félez

Vaquero-Serrano

2023

Machines

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The current mobility situation is constantly changing as people are increasingly moving to urban areas. Therefore, a flexible mode of transport with high-capacity passenger trains and a high degree of modularity in the trains’ composition is necessary. Virtual coupling (VC) is a promising solution to this problem because it significantly increases the capacity of a line and provides a more flexible mode of operation than conventional signaling systems. This novel review, in which approximately 200 papers were analyzed, identifies the main topics of current railway-related VC research, and represents the first step toward the implementation of VC in future railways. It was found that industry research has mainly focused on the feasibility of VC implementation and operation, whereas in academia, which is coordinated with industry, research has focused on control and communication systems. From a technological perspective, the main challenges for VC were identified with regard to aspects such as safety, control technology, interlocking, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, cooperative train protection and control, and integrated traffic management. The important directions for future research that have been identified for future development include complete dynamic models, real-time controllers, reliable and secure communication, different communication topologies, cybersecurity, intelligent control, reinforcement learning, and Big Data analytics.

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Scheduling of Coupled Train Platoons for Metro Networks: A Passenger Demand-Oriented Approach

Cited by 18 publications

References 30 publications

A Relative Operation-Based Separation Model for Safe Distances of Virtually Coupled Trains

A Relative Operation-Based Separation Model for Safe Distances of Virtually Coupled Trains

Robust cooperative train trajectory optimization with stochastic delays under virtual coupling

Virtual Coupling in Railways: A Comprehensive Review

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