Download or read book Methods for Capacity Allocation in Deregulated Railway Markets written by Abderrahman Ait Ali and published by Linköping University Electronic Press. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 51 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with increasing challenges, railways around Europe have recently undergone major reforms aiming to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the railway sector. New market structures such as vertical separation, deregulation and open access can allow for reduced public expenditures, increased market competition, and more efficient railway systems. However, these structures have introduced new challenges for managing infrastructure and operations. Railway capacity allocation, previously internally performed within monopolistic national companies, are now conferred to an infrastructure manager. The manager is responsible for transparent and efficient allocation of available capacity to the different (often competing) licensed railway undertakings. This thesis aims at developing a number of methods that can help allocate capacity in a deregulated (vertically separated) railway market. It focuses on efficiency in terms of social welfare, and transparency in terms of clarity and fairness. The work is concerned with successive allocation of capacity for publicly controlled and commercial traffic within a segmented railway market. The contributions include cost benefit analysis methods that allow public transport authorities to assess the social welfare of their traffic, and create efficient schedules. The thesis also describes a market-based transparent capacity allocation where infrastructure managers price commercial train paths to solve capacity conflicts with publicly controlled traffic. Additionally, solution methods are developed to help estimate passenger demand, which is a necessary input both for resolving conflicts, and for creating efficient timetables. Future capacity allocation in deregulated markets may include solution methods from this thesis. However, further experimentations are still required to address concerns such as data, legislation and acceptability. Moreover, future works can include prototyping and pilot projects on the proposed solutions, and investigating legal and digitalisation strategies to facilitate the implementation of such solutions. Med ökande utmaningar har järnvägar runt om i Europa genomgått stora reformer som syftar till att förbättra järnvägssektorns effektivitet och konkurrenskraft. Nya marknadsstrukturer såsom vertikal separering, avreglering och öppet tillträde för flera operatörer kan möjliggöra minskade offentliga kostnader, ökad marknadskonkurrens och effektivare järnvägssystem. Denna omreglering av järnvägsmarknaderna har dock skapat nya utmaningar för hanteringen av järnvägsinfrastruktur och drift. Tilldelning av järnvägskapacitet, vilket tidigare sköttes inom nationella monopolföretag, måste nu göras av en infrastrukturförvaltare (infrastructure manager). Förvaltarens kapacitetstilldelning till olika (ofta konkurrerande) licensierade järnvägsföretag (railway undertakings) måste samtidigt vara transparent, rättvis och leda till ett effektivt kapacitetsutnyttjande. I denna avhandling utvecklas metoder som kan användas av en infrastrukturförvaltare för att tilldela kapacitet i en avreglerad järnvägsmarknad. Den fokuserar på samhällsekonomiskt effektiva utfall men även transparens, tydlighet och rättvisa. Avhandlingens bidrag omfattar samhällsekonomiska analysmetoder som gör det möjligt för regionala kollektivtrafikmyndigheter att bedöma den samhällsekonomiska effektiviteten för deras trafikering och skapa ett effektivt utbud. Med dessa metoder som utgångspunkt beskrivs en marknadsbaserad och transparent tilldelningsprocess för kapacitet där infrastrukturförvaltare prissätter kommersiella tåglägen för att lösa kapacitetskonflikter med offentligt kontrollerad trafik. Dessutom utvecklas optimeringsmetoder för att estimera passagerarefterfrågan och för att skapa effektiva tågtidtabeller. Framtida kapacitetstilldelning på avreglerade marknader kan inkludera lösningsmetoder från denna avhandling. Ytterligare experiment krävs dock fortfarande för att hantera problem såsom data, lagstiftning och godtagbarhet. Dessutom kan framtida arbete omfatta prototyper och pilotprojekt av de föreslagna lösningarna och undersöka lagliga och digitaliseringsstrategier för att underlätta implementeringen av sådana lösningar.
Download or read book Railway Capacity Allocation written by Abderrahman Ait Ali and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Algorithmic Railway Capacity Allocation in a Competitive European Railway Market written by Sebastian Georg Klabes and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Railway Track Allocation written by Thomas Schlechte and published by Sudwestdeutscher Verlag Fur Hochschulschriften AG. This book was released on 2012-03 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis is about mathematical optimization for the efficient use of railway infrastructure. We address the optimal allocation of the available railway track capacity - the track allocation problem. This track allocation problem is a major challenge for a railway company, independent of whether a free market, a private monopoly, or a public monopoly is given. Planning and operating railway transportation systems is extremely hard due to the combinatorial complexity of the underlying discrete optimization problems, the technical intricacies, and the immense sizes of the problem instances. Mathematical models and optimization techniques can result in huge gains for both railway customers and operators, e.g., in terms of cost reductions or service quality improvements. We tackle this challenge by developing novel mathematical models and associated innovative algorithmic solution methods for large scale instances. This allows us to produce for the first time reliable solutions for a real world instance, i.e., the Simplon corridor in Switzerland.
Download or read book Capacity Allocation in Vertically Integrated Rail Systems written by Ahmadreza Talebian and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper presents a game-theoretic bargaining approach to allocating rail line capacity in vertically integrated systems. A passenger rail agency negotiates with the host freight railroad to determine train schedules and the associated payment. The objective on the passenger side is to maximize utility, i.e., revenue minus costs of passenger train operations, passenger schedule delay and en-route delay; the freight side minimizes the costs of train departure delay, en-route delay, loss of demand, and track maintenance. Bargaining in both complete and incomplete information settings are considered; the latter arises because the freight railroad may withhold its private cost information. With complete information, we find that the equilibrium payments proposed by the passenger rail agency and the host freight railroad will each be invariant to who initiates the payment bargaining, although the actual payment does depend on who is the initiator. The equilibrium schedule maximizes system welfare. With incomplete information, the passenger rail agency may choose between pooling and separating equilibrium strategies while proposing a payment, depending on its prior belief about the cost type of the freight railroad; whereas the host freight railroad will adopt strategies that do not reveal its cost type. To identify equilibrium schedules, a pooling equilibrium is constructed along with conditions for the existence of equilibrium schedules. We further conduct numerical experiments to obtain additional policy-relevant insights.
Download or read book Sustainable Railway Futures written by Becky P.Y. Loo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revitalizing railways as a major sustainable transport mode in modern societies faces many issues and challenges. This in-depth overview places the importance of railways in the wider context of comprehensive sustainability, which encompasses sustainable development, social and economic equity and community livability. Some scholars have described the 21st century as a period of renaissance for railways and suggest this transport mode can fulfil people's desire for high mobility with low negative environmental, social, economic and financial impacts. In light of these new expectations for railways, in both passenger and freight transport worldwide, this book offers the latest research insights on the renewed interest about railway expansions and their wide-ranging environmental, socio-economic and even political implications.
Download or read book Analysis of Capacity Pricing and Allocation Mechanisms in Shared Railway Systems written by Maite Peña Alcaraz and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last 15 years, the use of rail infrastructure by different train operating companies (shared railway system) has been proposed as a way to improve infrastructure utilization and to increase efficiency in the railway industry. Shared use requires coordination between the infrastructure manager and multiple train operators. Such coordination requires capacity planning mechanisms that determine which trains can access the infrastructure at each time, capacity allocation, and the access charges they have to pay, capacity pricing. The objective of this thesis is to contribute to the field of shared railway systems coordination by 1) developing a framework to analyze the performance of shared railway systems under alternative capacity pricing and allocation mechanisms, and 2) using this framework to understand the implications of representative capacity pricing and allocation mechanisms in representative shared railway systems. There are strong interactions between capacity planning and infrastructure operations in the railway industry; the operations on the infrastructure determine the available capacity in the system. As a consequence, the framework developed in this thesis to evaluate the performance of shared railway systems under alternative capacity pricing and allocation consists of two models: 1) a train operator model and 2) an infrastructure manager model. The train operator model is a financial model that anticipates how train operators would respond to the capacity pricing and allocation mechanisms and determine their demand for infrastructure use. The infrastructure manager model is a network optimization model that determines the optimal train timetable (infrastructure manager's decisions) that accommodates the train operators' demands for scheduling trains, considering the topology of the system, safety constraints, and other technical aspects of the infrastructure for shared railway systems. To be able to solve the train timetabling optimization problem in meaningful instances, this thesis develops a novel approximate dynamic programming algorithm based on linear programming that extends previous algorithms proposed in the literature to effectively solve large network optimization problems. This thesis then uses the train operator model to compare the operational decisions of train operators in shared railway systems with the operational decisions of even-handed integrated railway companies. We show that train operators in shared railway system access charges reflect variable infrastructure manager's costs to operate trains on the infrastructure. We also identify two cases in which the train operators may have incentives to deviate from the integrated railway systems' operational decisions: 1) when the infrastructure manager needs to recover part of the infrastructure management fixed costs, or 2) when the railway system is congested. This motivates the choice of the two case studies of this thesis, one based on the Central Corridor in Tanzania, and the other one based on the Northeast Corridor in the US. We then show how to use the framework proposed in this thesis to analyze the trade-offs associated with the use of alternative mechanisms in these two cases. To our knowledge, this is the first effort to compare alternative mechanisms to price and allocate capacity in the same shared railway system. The results of this thesis show that there are important trade-offs associated with each mechanism and none of them is superior to the other on all dimensions. We thus recommend that system stakeholders carefully analyze the implications of alternative capacity pricing and allocation mechanisms before locking the system into one of them. This is particularly important today since several countries are currently restructuring their railway sector to allow shared use. We claim that the improved understanding of the system performance gained with the framework proposed in this thesis is important to be able to design adequate capacity pricing and allocation mechanisms that can mitigate the coordination problems of shared railway systems while maintaining the benefits of shared infrastructure in the railway industry.
Download or read book Railway Infrastructure Capacity in the Open Access Condition written by Jozef Gašparík and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The railway sector in the European Union is changing. The goal of EU transport policy is to liberalize the market for rail transport services, dismantle national transport monopolies, and open competitive public tenders to other train operators. For the optimal utilization of the railway infrastructure capacity, it is necessary to calculate it properly in terms of open access to the infrastructure. At present, many important corridors are at full capacity. Therefore, in order to increase the number of freight trains, it is necessary to implement certain measures to increase the track line capacity. Infrastructure capacity research is part of the complexity of the capacity management processes. A progressive approach to define it means to describe the estimating process of railway infrastructure capacity including progressive capacity allocation approaches as a key part of capacity management. The aim is to define the processes of the infrastructure capacity management on which depends the quality level of operational traffic management as well the efficiency of the traffic flow on the infrastructure. The partial objective is to investigate the impact of systematic train paths in periodic timetables on rail infrastructure capacity. The proposals fully respect the EU transport policy.
Download or read book Railway Track Capacity written by M. Khadem Sameni and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis adopts a holistic approach towards railway track capacity to develop methodologies for different aspects of defining, measuring, analysing, improving and controlling track capacity utilisation. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the concept of capacity and the railway capacity challenge is explained. Chapter 2 focuses on past approaches to defining and analysing the concept of railway capacity. Existing methods for estimating capacity utilisation are studied in four categories: analytical methods, parametric models, optimisation and simulation. Chapter 3 examines various factors affecting capacity utilisation. Chapter 4 develops the systems engineering foundation toward railway capacity. From process improvement methods, Six Sigma and its Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control (DMAIC) cycle is chosen as the underlying framework of the thesis. Chapter 5 defines lean, micro and macro capacity utilisation based on the discrete nature of railway capacity. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to develop two novel methodologies to analyse lean capacity utilisation. A DEA model analyses relative efficiency of train operating companies based on their efficiency to transform allocated train paths (timetabled train kilometres) and franchise payments to passenger-kilometres while avoiding delays. A case study demonstrates its application to 16 train operating companies in the UK. The operational efficiency of stations is benchmarked from similar studies for ports and airports. Two models are developed for analysing technical efficiency and service effectiveness. 96 busiest stations in Great Britain are analysed by this method. For analysing capacity utilisation in the freight sector, the concept of 'profit-generating capacity' is introduced in chapter 6. It is applied in an American freight case study to choose between bulk and intermodal trains in a heterogeneous traffic. DEA is also used in another case study for identifying the most profitable commodities. Chapter 7 suggests using variation reduction and failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) to control capacity utilisation. For improving railway capacity utilisation it is suggested to find and improve the weakest line section, the weakest trains and the weakest station. A real world case study of the South West Main Line in Great Britain, demonstrates applying these aspects. For finding the weakest line section two existing methods of the UIC 406 and the CUI method are compared with each other. For finding the weakest trains a meso index is suggested. It can identify which trains can be removed to free up some capacity in the busiest section of the line. Simulating delays and removing the highest delay causing trains is another method suggested. The weakest stations are identified by applying the DEA methodology developed in chapter 5. Target values for train stops at each station are suggested to be fed to the tactical timetabling. It is concluded that developing methodologies to analyse, improve and control railway capacity utilisation is needed and the methodologies proposed in this thesis can be a stepping stone towards them.
Download or read book Computers in Railways XIII written by C. A. Brebbia and published by WIT Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 781 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Containing the proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Design and Operation in Railway Engineering, this book presents the latest developments in the use of computer-based techniques in the design and operation of railways. The COMPRAIL conference series serves as the forum for major advances in this important field. The book covers such topics as Advanced Train Control; Planning; Timetable Planning; Rescheduling; Risk Management; Safety and Security; Maglev and High-speed Railways; Traffic Control and Safety of High-speed Railways; Metro and Other Transit Systems; Communications and Signalling; Energy Supply and Consumption; Driverless and Automatic Train Operation; Operations Quality; Computer Techniques and Simulations; Railway Vehicle Dynamics; Dynamics and Wheel/Rail Interface; Monitoring and Maintenance; Crack, Damage and Fatigue Problems.The book will be of interest to railway managers, consultants, railway engineers (including signal and control engineers), designers of advanced train control systems and computer specialists
Download or read book Free Entry in Infrastructure written by David Ehrhardt and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1999 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rail International written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Railway Reform and Charges for the Use of Infrastructure written by European Conference of Ministers of Transport and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2005-11-16 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains how barriers to growth in rail freight transport across Europe can be overcome. It recommends a simple set of charges that create incentives for management and planning of train operations across national borders.
Download or read book Handbook of Spectrum Auction Design written by Martin Bichler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-26 with total page 935 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An international team of experts covers the pros and cons of different auction formats and lessons learned in the field.
Download or read book Concurrent planning of railway maintenance windows and train services written by Tomas Lidén and published by Linköping University Electronic Press. This book was released on 2018-11-05 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Efficiency in public and freight transportation systems is of great importance for a society. Railways can other high capacity and relatively low environmental impact, but require that several technical systems are tuned and operate well. Specifically there is a tight interdependency between infrastructure and trains. The consequences are that all subsystems must be maintained and that the coordination of infrastructure activities and train operations is essential. Railway infrastructure maintenance and train services should ideally be planned together, but practice and research about railway scheduling has historically focused mainly on train operations and timetabling while maintenance planning has received less attention | and little research have considered the joint scheduling of both types of activities. Instead the traditional approach has been a sequential and iterative planning procedure, where train timetabling often has precedence over infrastructure maintenance. This thesis studies how maintenance windows, which are regular time windows reserved for maintenance work, can be dimensioned and jointly scheduled with train services in a balanced and efficient way for both maintenance contractors and train operators. Mathematical methods are used, with the aim of advancing the knowledge about quantitative methods for solving such coordination problems. The thesis contributes with new optimization models that jointly schedule maintenance windows and train services, investigates the solving efficiency of these models, and studies crucial extensions of the planning problem | primarily for the consideration of maintenance resources. Furthermore, the models are applied to, verified and validated on a demanding real-life problem instance. The main results are that integrated and optimal scheduling of maintenance windows and train services is viable for problems of practical size and importance, and that substantial maintenance cost savings can be achieved with such an integrated approach as compared to a traditional sequential planning process. The thesis consists of an introduction and overview of the research, followed by six papers which present: (1) A cost benefit model for assessment of competing capacity requests at a single location; (2) An optimization model for integrated scheduling of both maintenance windows and train services; (3) Mathematical reformulations that strengthen the optimization model; (4) Extensions for handling resource considerations and cyclic schedules; (5) A case study for a major single track line in Sweden; and (6) A mathematical study of length-restricted sequences under cyclic conditions.
Download or read book Leisure Recreation and Tourism Abstracts written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Electricity Auctions written by Luiz Maurer and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2011-07-25 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Electricity-contract auctions have been getting increased attention as they have emerged as a successful mechanism to procure new generation capacity and. This book presents a comprehensive overview of international experiences in auction design and implementation.
