Train Occupancy Time of a Railway Section and the Combined Occupancy Method for Capacity Assessment

Abstract

Accurate and convenient assessment of a section’s capacity is an essential problem in the operation of high-speed railway companies. The concept of occupancy time is widely used in the field, but there is still a lack of quantitative analysis to support follow-up studies and application. In this research, the calculation method for one train, two trains and multiple trains is discussed. The occupancy time of the two trains was divided into three cases according to the relationship between them, and the calculation formulas are given. For the calculation of multiple trains, the circumstances were too intricate to be classified. To solve this problem, the concept of a continuous train group was proposed. The three properties of the continuous train group were analyzed and proved by mathematical derivation to provide theoretical support to transform a multi-train problem into many two-train problems. Finally, a combined occupancy method for capacity assessment was formed and applied to the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway. A series of numerical cases were designed to evaluate the performance compared with the UIC406 method. The results demonstrate that the combined occupancy method can better assess the capacity and is more convenient to implement.

Keywords

• high-speed railway
• train occupancy time
• capacity assessment
• continuous train group
• combined occupancy method