A Discrete Event-Based Simulation Model for Real-Time Traffic Management in Railways

Abstract

Rail systems are highly complex and their control requires mathematical-computational tools. The main drawback of the models used to represent railway traffic, and to resolve any conflicts that occur, is the large computational time needed to obtain satisfactory results. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to study and design a discrete event-based model, characterized by the positioning of trains in block sections, that can represent the rail system, including the dynamic aspect, and a fixed block signaling system able to proactively detect and resolve potential conflicts that may occur within this system. This model can be developed and integrated as a specific module of a railway passenger-dedicated intelligent transportation systems (ITS) oriented to real-time traffic management in order to improve the service quality of a railway system's operations. The aim is to reduce the computational cost as much as possible and implement the proposed model in a railway network. A numerical investigation based on the Renfe Cercanís Madrid rail network (Spain) shows the high computational performance of the proposed approach in a real-life application context.

Keywords:

• Discrete Event Modeling
• Railway Traffic Management
• Real-Time Traffic
• System Capacity Check
• Train Control

Acknowledgments

This research has been partly financed by the Ministerio de Fomento (Development Ministry) via CEDEX and the PT-2007–003-08CCPP research project. Our thanks to Renfe Operadora for provision of the data to test the model and the tool, and for the assistance given in the development of the SIMEIFER tool.