Konferensartikel

Preventing both passenger and freight trains from crossing each other in double-track railway tunnels is a fire safety measure required by the German railway authority in order to prevent fatal accidents. The prohibition poses a restriction on infrastructure usage that has to be incorporated in rail traffic planning. While it has already been implemented in timetabling and simulation tools, its effects on line capacity in long-term strategic planning has not been investigated so far. This paper presents a method to incorporate restrictions on simultaneous track usage in the blocking time calculation and minimum headway time estimation. The effects on line capacity are analysed quantitatively based on the STRELE approach, which is an analytical method for strategic long-term capacity planning currently used by German railway infrastructure manager DB Netz AG. Results are validated by com-parison to delay increase in microscopic simulation of train operations.

Analytical methods, Capacity, Safety, Train crossings, Tunnels