Increasing railway capacity and reliability through integrated real-time rescheduling

This paper presents an overview of an ongoing research project that is designed to identify methods for increasing the capacity and stability of heavily used mixed-traffic railway networks without making significant new infrastructure investments. The proposed approach combines rescheduling with network traffic control in an attempt to minimize schedule reserve times without reducing stability and thereby increase network capacity. The paper presents an overview of the approach, discusses the rescheduling process and issues that need to be addressed in order to effectively use new approach, outlines how the network should be divided to best use the new approach, and presents results of a microscopic railroad simulation that shows the approach can improve capacity, reduce delays and increase schedule stability.