Sustainable Rail Transport

It appears that nowadays rail vehicles are not the primary choice of transportation for people going to the airport. The inconvenience of carrying luggage on railways deters passengers, who look for alternatives. Attempts have been made to encourage passengers to travel to the airport by rail. However, significant limitations in these existing systems suggest a need for extensive work and adjustments, but this would increase the price and discourage passengers. This study investigates the potential for implementing an on-board check-in and bag drop system onto rail vehicles. By observing the Tyne and Wear Metro, Newcastle, the UK the benefits and limitations of installing such a facility have been explored, by the development of suitable operations and interior designs. Four designs which meet the design criteria were produced and their limitations considered. This study concludes that the potential for an on-board check-in and bag drop facility is realistic. Each design brings key benefits and limitations, and all meet security, and health and safety criteria. A feature incorporated into all designs allows for the equipment to be removed easily and stored away, helping with a low cost and versatile approach.

The passenger transport sector in the European Union today is very customer-oriented. Transport operators have recognized that having a satisfied customer means a passenger will return to use the service again and so increase the overall income of the transport operator. In railway passenger transport over the last decade, there have been efforts to place the passenger in the focus of the railway transport process, but the overall effort has been very slow. The primary focus is usually on railway lines with great demand, especially high-speed train lines and national train lines. Various methodologies that support this effort are different methods of quality of transport services. Quality is a fundamental influence on services in passenger transport. One of the most useful methods for assessing the quality of service is surveys. Surveys can be done from the passenger point of view but also from the transport operator’s point of view. During the past decade the level of service on regional railway lines in Croatia is relatively stable with a trend towards downgrading the level of service. One of the observations is there is no regular assessment of services and no interaction with passengers. This paper presents the results of a survey-based quality assessment of passenger transport services on a regional line in the north-western part of Croatia where a comprehensive survey identified how to maintain the existing level of service, some proposals on how to improve the level of service are also presented.

Short-distance rail passenger transport is regarded as a service of public interest in almost all EU countries. With regard to European Transport Policy and measurements proposed in the Fourth Railway Package, it is necessary to improve the quality of rail passenger transport services, so it reflects customers’ requirements, and the optimal utilisation of public resources. Opening the market of this rail passenger transport segment may, however, not bring expected results. The efforts to reduce a drain on public resources may induce a lower quality of services and lower performance of rail services. Public passenger transport represents only one quarter of the total share of passenger transport on the Slovak transport market where the share of rail passenger transport is approximately 9.4%. A separate issue is the impact of a zero fare, introduced in November 2014, on the attitude of the public on rail transport. As a result, the interest of the public in travelling by passenger trains has increased, but at the same time, the quality of provided services has been impacted significantly. This paper outlines how selected technical, technological and other factors influence the efficiency of providing services within a rail passenger transport segment in a selected urban agglomeration. The results suggest; applying a tariff system and setting quality standards of services for rail passenger transport.

Project selection and the prioritization of activities are configured as classical optimization problems, and one of the most commonly used techniques to solve this kind of problem is Goal Programming (GP), a multi-criteria analysis technique. Problems related to the prioritization of railway investment selection or maintenance processes involve goals and constraints such as budget constraints, the availability of labour and resources, and the degradation of permanent track materials. This chapter presents two applications of Goal Programming in railways. The first model selects projects for a railway-sustaining investment portfolio. The second model allows for the prioritization of railway superstructure maintenance based on the maintenance demand for components and the geometric, environmental and demographic characteristics of a railway. Defining the best investment portfolio or a proper maintenance strategy are essential tasks for railway sustainability to achieve long-term goals involving multiple, often immeasurable and conflicting, objectives. The results show that these two proposed models allow for the prioritization of goals defined as the most important and proved useful in the presentation of scenarios that facilitate the choice of investment portfolio or superstructure maintenance strategy.

Despite the advances in solving the Railway Alignment Optimization (RAO) problem, the computational burden of the current algorithms to estimate new intercity connections of minimum cost is still an issue. This paper proposes a parallel Genetic Algorithm framework running on a high performance computing environment to solve the RAO problem while minimizing the costs of new railway alignments constrained by the geometric parameters required to run trains with different average speeds. The framework was applied to new connections between Brazilian cities and the results show that it is capable of providing accurate estimations compared to the international experience. From the computational aspect, the parallel computing approach drastically reduces the running times in the cases studied. However, scaling the computing infrastructure to more than 5 machines running in parallel may not be advantageous since the running times do not decrease significantly when more virtual machines are available.

The Mega-cities around the world are experiencing a rapid growth demanding more and more services and products in urban areas, which are often very dense and congested. The traditional road-based logistics strategies have been inadequate in dealing with large restricted delivery operations. Challenges arise due to legislation that restricts the travel of trucks inside the city centres, or to the increasing number of medium size vehicles in the streets. This paper shows a new method by comparing two options of delivering products in the city centres, one using traditional road-based delivery, and another with a hub-spoke model using the public railway transit system. Data analysis of the city’s Master Transportation Plan shows a low level of utilization of the public railway transit system, and through this finding, we analysed the inter-modal freight transportation in such urban areas. To cope with transit time and cost, we developed a model, assessing the sensitivity and opportunities by carrying out analysis in a real case study. There is evidence that the model is sensible for the proposed congestion factor in the transit time as it can be a way to improve the service level of the deliveries inside the city centres, decreasing the number of medium sized trucks needed. The results show that it is possible to use inter-modal transportation when the road-based distribution operations suffer from a certain level of congestion in the haulage and last-mile stage.

The secure travel and the safety of passengers are the utmost priority for transportation authorities all over the world. The fire safety in railway rolling stocks has gained significant importance in recent years. The study of fire dynamics including the fire growth and spreading, allows the development of fire protection techniques and passenger evacuation scenarios. Understanding fire development in train carriages is limited as few experimental investigations have been conducted on full-scale fire dynamic measurements of entire passenger coaches. This paper represents a comprehensive account of the computational fluid dynamics model used for the simulation of the fire dynamics in full scale rolling stock vehicle. Full-scale heat release rate (HRR) measurements were carried out for the entire vehicle as well as temperature distribution for various fire compartment scenarios. The model was tested and the simulation results were verified against those presented in experimental research developments in the literature.

Recent developments in different areas have enabled the improvement and development of new energy harvesting technologies that could potentially be successfully employed for various railway applications. The state of development of energy harvesting solutions potentially suitable for integration in the railway environment to power trackside equipment has been reviewed and assessed. The general harvesting capacities and characteristics of potential energy harvesting technologies have been discussed, along with the general power usage requirements and characteristics of common types of trackside equipment. Conclusions have been drawn about the most suitable energy harvesting technologies, or combination of technologies to be incorporated into a combined energy harvesting and storage power supply for different trackside equipment.

The European high-speed network already offers an alternative to intra-European air traffic for short distances (500–1000 km). High-speed traffic has so far been limited to daily connections. By making targeted use of the overnight jump, the train could also be an alternative to air travel for distances of up to 2000 km. This paper shows the potential opportunities for the use of high-speed overnight trains in Europe and defines the requirements for services and vehicle equipment from the point of view of rail passengers.

Technology and automation are impacting the rail industry with the requirements for interoperability across borders and systems. New skills are required for employees such as the ability to use contemporary communication technology, artificial intelligence and robotics. Without the skills of talented humans, it will not be possible to successfully transition to Industry 4.0. To prepare for a future rail workforce, talent practice and skill development now must consider the needs of Millennials who will be the rail workforce of the future. The talent process needs to be actively incorporated as a living and dynamic process by HR departments into business processes for strategic excellence. Organisations that have successfully integrated exemplary talent practice to propel their business are characterised by actions around proactive talent management, planning, diversity and inclusiveness and development of individual careers.

An intensive training course on rail freight and logistics was delivered in English to employees from the energy and petrochemical industry in Thailand in 2017. It was organized with the purpose of helping their staff gain knowledge and understanding of principles for effectively managing rail freight and logistics systems. This training course discussed the potential for economic growth and readiness of Thailand to become the logistics rail-based hub for ASEAN. Participants had less experience in rail freight and logistics; hence they wished to improve their knowledge of the subject area for potential management of rail freight and logistics projects across Thailand and its neighbouring countries. After the five-day training course, feedback from participants has been collected; the analysis showed positive views. The participants found the course helpful as it met their expectations. They also provided constructive criticism and useful recommendations for the future delivery of this course.