Health and Safety at Work Act
Capacity Statement for Railways
Alex Landex, al@ctt.dtu.dk Centre for Traffic and Transport, Technical University of Denmark
1 Abstract
The subject “Railway capacity” is a combination of the capacity consumption and how the capacity is utilized. The capacity utilization of railways can be divided into 4 core elements: The number of trains; the average speed; the heterogeneity of the operation; and the stability. This article describes how the capacity consumption for railways can be worked out and analytical measurements of how the capacity is utilized. Furthermore, the article describes how it is possible to state and visualize railway capacity. Having unused railway capacity is not always equal to be able to operate more trains. This is due to network effects in the railway system and due to the fact that more trains results in lower punctuality. Keywords: Railway capacity, Capacity, UIC 406, Capacity consumption, Capacity utilization
2 Introduction
The railway sector has in recent years been divided into rail authorities, infrastructure managers and operators. Furthermore, more construction companies and consultants have started working with railways. The many new companies result in a need for consensus of how to express and communicate core elements such as railway capacity. As a consequence of no consensus on railway capacity the International Union of Railways (UIC) published a leaflet – the UIC 406 capacity leaflet – describing railway capacity in the year 2004. The UIC 406 capacity method defines railway capacity as “the total number of possible paths in a defined time window, considering the actual path mix or known developments respectively…” [25]. Since the publication of the UIC 406 capacity leaflet many organizations inside the railway sector have been working on how to expound the capacity leaflet to calculate the capacity consumption. This work has been published in a number of publications, e.g. [1], [2], [8], [9], [10], [11] and [23]. However,
Alex Landex, al@ctt.dtu.dk Centre for Traffic and Transport, Technical University of Denmark
1 Abstract
The subject “Railway capacity” is a combination of the capacity consumption and how the capacity is utilized. The capacity utilization of railways can be divided into 4 core elements: The number of trains; the average speed; the heterogeneity of the operation; and the stability. This article describes how the capacity consumption for railways can be worked out and analytical measurements of how the capacity is utilized. Furthermore, the article describes how it is possible to state and visualize railway capacity. Having unused railway capacity is not always equal to be able to operate more trains. This is due to network effects in the railway system and due to the fact that more trains results in lower punctuality. Keywords: Railway capacity, Capacity, UIC 406, Capacity consumption, Capacity utilization
2 Introduction
The railway sector has in recent years been divided into rail authorities, infrastructure managers and operators. Furthermore, more construction companies and consultants have started working with railways. The many new companies result in a need for consensus of how to express and communicate core elements such as railway capacity. As a consequence of no consensus on railway capacity the International Union of Railways (UIC) published a leaflet – the UIC 406 capacity leaflet – describing railway capacity in the year 2004. The UIC 406 capacity method defines railway capacity as “the total number of possible paths in a defined time window, considering the actual path mix or known developments respectively…” [25]. Since the publication of the UIC 406 capacity leaflet many organizations inside the railway sector have been working on how to expound the capacity leaflet to calculate the capacity consumption. This work has been published in a number of publications, e.g. [1], [2], [8], [9], [10], [11] and [23]. However,