Railway Operations: Issues and

Objectives
Capacity management
Infrastructure planning
Timetable preparation
Management of day-to-day movement
of trains.

Objectives of the Simulator

Observing effects of making changes to the

existing timetable

Estimating section capacity

Analyzing the effect of introducing extra

scheduled trains in the section

Objectives of the Simulator

Visualizing the consequences of signal failure

and delays of trains.

To model and represent different arrival

patterns and compositions of traffic on section.

Evaluating investment proposals at local level

Objectives of the Simulator

To present the impact of changed operational
parameters such as
Speed of trains
Acceleration/Deceleration
Loop entry/exit velocities
To experiment with different scheduling possibilities
based on Throughput
Delays
Priorities
Due dates lateness
Slack in timetables.

Capacity Planning
Line /Section Capacity:
Number of (standardised) trains that can be run on
a given section
Estimated by

Scotts Formula
Master chart preparation

This can be done only for a static, known traffic

scenario

Current notion of capacity

The number of trains that can be handled with
reasonable transit time (say, twice the bare
minimum transit time).
This accounts for the prevailing traffic mix
and congestion effects.

Software
Uses Java 2 as development platform.
User specified data files are read and
station and blocks are modeled
accordingly
Trains are sorted in the order of their
priorities
Runs in one train at a time
orcomplete simulation modes

Inputs
In MS Excel or ASCII Text format

Station details
Loop details
Block details
Scheduled trains data
Freight train data
Simulation parameter
data

Gradient
specification data
Gradients effect
details
Signal failure details
Delay specification
data

Output
Loop /platform occupancies
Block occupancies
Traversal time of trains (timetabled
passenger as well as non-timetabled
freight trains); Averages of such times
Plot of distance vs. time in the master chart
format
Velocity profile and signal aspect displays
Signal headway

Algorithm

Departure Time Based Priority

Scheduling of Passenger Trains
The train with higher priority is scheduled first
If two trains have the same priority
Compared for their departure times, for scheduled
passenger trains
Compared for their arrival times, for freight trains

Passenger train with earliest departure or freight

train with earliest arrival time is scheduled first

Preference Based Resource

Allocation for Passenger Trains
Exploring other possible alternate paths
through the station if the preferred loop is
not available by passenger train
Ensures a much efficient use of available
resources to facilitate a smooth passage
past the section.

Simulation Output without

searching alternate paths

Simulation Output with searching

alternate paths

Signal Spacing and Headway

Analysis on Suburban sections
Supports automatic signaling on mainline
sections and relevant track and train detail
in operation.
Study for Central Railway on signal spaci
ng and headway analysis.