Macroscopic multiple-station short-turning model in case of complete railway blockages

In case of railway disruptions, traffic controllers are responsible for dealing with disrupted traffic and reduce the negative impact for the rest of the network. In case of a complete blockage when no train can use an entire track, a common practice is to short-turn trains. Trains approaching the blockage cannot proceed according to their...

Impact of railway disruption predictions and rescheduling on passenger delays

Disruptions such as rolling stock breakdown, signal failures, and accidents are recurrent events during daily railway operation. Such events disrupt the deployment of resources and cause delay to passengers. Obtaining a reliable disruption length estimation can potentially reduce the negative impact caused by the disruption. Different factors...

Railway disruption management challenges and possible solution directions

This paper investigates the challenges of railway traffic controllers in dealing with big disruptions and the kind of support tools that could help to improve their task in terms of performance, lead time and workload. The disruption handling process can be partitioned into three phases resembling a bathtub. For each phase the essential...

A Microscopic Model for Optimal Train Short-Turnings during Complete Blockages

Currently railway traffic controllers use predefined solutions (contingency plans) to deal with a disruption. These plans are manually designed by expert traffic controllers and are specific to a certain location and timetable. With a slight change in the timetable or infrastructure, these plans might not be feasible and have to be updated....