Modelling and Simulation of Tramway Transportation Systems

Abstract

Electrified guided vehicles typically face routes having a large number of acceleration and braking phases. The braking energy, since the feeding line presents nonreversible electrical feeding substations, can be recovered in the presence of other nearby vehicles. To improve braking energy recovery, one or more storage systems can be positioned along the track. Analysis of effectiveness for the considered solution requires time-domain simulation models, to be created through suitable simulation general-purpose languages or specialised languages/software. In this paper, three different tools for the considered existing tramway were developed, and the main examined characteristics have been compared to each other. Then, analysis of output results was also performed, demonstrating the real cost-effectiveness of introducing one storage device on the considered tramline in operation.

Modeling and Simulation of Electricity Systems for Transport and Energy Storage

“…The railway system model was implemented in a rail simulator based on the 'quasi static' backwards looking method, due to its short simulation times for estimating energy consumption of vehicles following an imposed speed cycle [46]. The rail simulator is a multi-stage program, implemented in Visual Basic and Fortran language and operating in MS-DOS and the Microsoft Excel workspace [59][60][61], including:…”

“…The electrical computation software, implemented in Fortran language, allows to solve load flows calculation for a direct current electrified system [46,60,61]. For each simulation step, the software creates an equivalent electric network in which the nodes represent the traction power substation, vehicles present on the route and parallel points, as shown in Figure 5.…”

A Preliminary Techno-Economic Comparison between DC Electrification and Trains with On-Board Energy Storage Systems

“…The railway system model was implemented in a rail simulator based on the 'quasi static' backwards looking method, due to its short simulation times for estimating energy consumption of vehicles following an imposed speed cycle [46]. The rail simulator is a multi-stage program, implemented in Visual Basic and Fortran language and operating in MS-DOS and the Microsoft Excel workspace [59][60][61], including:…”

“…The electrical computation software, implemented in Fortran language, allows to solve load flows calculation for a direct current electrified system [46,60,61]. For each simulation step, the software creates an equivalent electric network in which the nodes represent the traction power substation, vehicles present on the route and parallel points, as shown in Figure 5.…”

“…The software requires as input the data related to the power profiles of trains, the electrical substation features and the resistance of contact line equivalent section and rails. As output, the software provides the line voltage profile and currents flowing in the substation feeders, as well as the power provided by each electrical substation [61,62].…”