Generating and optimizing strategies for the migration of ETCS

Kurzfassung

The growing interconnection of the European Union and the increase of international traffic oppose new challenges to railways. The EU has decided to improve the situation by introducing the European Train Control System (ETCS) on corridors to achieve cross boarder interoperability. Therefore an optimized migration strategy is needed. The approach presented in this paper examines the whole corridor with its details and the dependencies with the rolling stock. It avoids planning mistakes, guarantees cost optimized strategies, and eases adoption to changed parameters. To generate all possible migration strategies, the corridor has to be modelled in detail. Therefore it is divided into homogenous sections. The fleet planning is extracted from the rolling stock and the traffic. It is applied on the corresponding sections. Based on this, requirements and dependencies are derived. This is especially important if deadlines have to be considered which determine the state of equipment to a specific point in time. Due to the complexity arising from the constraints and interdependencies, the generation of strategies is carried out automatically. The tool build upon the approach also delivers a rough schedule for the project management. Consequences of changes along the planning constraints can easily be computed, e.g. rescheduled deadlines. Subsequently, the strategies are evaluated and optimized. For a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, track performance can now be taken into account. Furthermore, different perspectives of the optimization can be compared. The method delivers comprehensive results which would be a good and transparent baseline for negotiations among the stakeholders to find a mutually agreed strategy.