IF articles

Summary - The paper presents an original approach to perform capacity assessments of railway systems, based on the automatic generation and evaluation of feasible timetables. This method relies on a microscopic model of railway systems, used to simulate the train runs and the operation of the signalling system. The resulting simulated train paths are utilised to arrange the input dataset for a scheduling algorithm which generates conflict-free timetables, which are then analysed in order to point out how and how much capacity is consumed. The described method and model are applied to a real case study, provided by a single- track railway in Piedmont, Italy. Given a baseline scenario, a set of infrastructural and operative improvements are taken into account. The relevant capacity increases are evaluated in terms of reduction of the global travel times of trains with respect to the baseline scenario. Results are analysed and discussed, highlighting the potentialities of the presented method to performing effective capacity evaluations useful for a better exploitation of railway systems.