Traffic Capacity Assessment of the Selected Track Section on the Slovak Railways Network after the Implementation of ETCS L3 Based on Signaling Principle

Abstract

In the field of railway operation, it is essential to establish uniform conditions for interconnectivity requirements and compatibility of equipment in the Pan-European railway area to ensure effective interoperability. It also includes, for example, the introduction of a control system with modern and advanced interlocking systems (safety devices). The European Train Control System (ETCS) is a single European train protection system that will increase safety in rail transport. Nevertheless, this system may have an impact on the throughput on those railway lines where it is applied. The main research objective is to determine the impacts and effects of the configuration of track signaling equipment on the operational management of traffic and especially on the creation of a traffic plan. The optimization of transport processes on the railway infrastructure means creating the conditions for achieving higher throughput performance, especially including a higher number of train paths into the train traffic diagram. This paper examines and compares the impacts of ETCS and its levels (in particular ETCS L3) on the practical throughput of the selected national infrastructure manager. A heuristic procedure is used with the application of the analytical methodology of the Railways of the Slovak Republic (ŽSR), which uses the principles of mathematical statistics and probability. Significant comparative indicators are occupancy times and the degree of utilization of practical throughput. These are used in investment decisions in the modernization of line sections to achieve interoperability of the railway system.

Artificial intelligence in operational applications of railway infrastructure manager

“…In the fourth deep learning level are combined at the input all the data from the first and second level of deep learning connected to the real infrastructure diagnostics data. It should be the learning from real failures and disorders and their traffic impact [9,10]. The output should be the prediction of failures (maintenance intervals, replacement requirements) with the impact to all three previous levels of deep learning.…”

Comparing the Effectiveness of Fixed, Virtual, and Moving Block Train Control Systems on a Mixed Single- and Double-Track U.S. Freight Rail Corridor

“…Van der Meulen developed a novel method to estimate moving block benefits that uses historic trajectory data from the existing fixed block control system, and used it to analyze various Dutch railway corridors ( 21 ). Dedik et al analytically compared ETCS Level 3 with existing automatic blocks and lower levels of ETCS on a section of the Slovak railway network, finding that ETCS Level 3 has the substantial capacity benefit of handling double the number of trains ( 22 ). Qian et al found that utilizing moving block increased the express passenger train capacity on the Qinghai-Tibet railway by 15% ( 23 ).…”