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The article presents a few issues related to the technical condition of a railway turnout, an important element of the railway network where about 90% of railway accidents occur. In the first part of the article, the results of railway turnout wear are presented. A comparison of normal forces (in wheel-rail contact) in vehicle traffic on straight track without a turnout and normal forces occurring when a rail vehicle passes a turnout is presented. Then, turnout wear processes for selected speeds are presented. In the next part of the paper, the possibilities of using a vision system are presented, which, in combination with tools for image processing analysis, makes it possible to detect wear and distances between the key elements of a railway turnout. The main idea of the proposed online diagnostic system solution is to use the analysis of received images (photos) with the help of a vision system. The basic problem to be solved in the proposed system was to develop algorithms responsible for generating wear areas from high-resolution images. The algorithms created within the work were implemented and tested in the MATLAB software environment. The presented method is an original procedure for diagnosing turnout elements for each time instant. The proposed system is compatible with railway traffic control systems.

This paper presents an analysis of fatal train accident rates and trends on Europe's main line railways from 1990-2019. It is a sequel to the paper Fatal train accidents on Europe's railways: 1980-2009 (Evans (2011), which covers the three decades 1980-2009. The present paper discards the data for the 1980s, but adds the data for 2010-2019. The data cover the 28 countries of the European Union as in 2019, together with Norway and Switzerland. The source of the recent data is largely the European Union Agency for Railways. The estimated overall trend in the number of fatal train collisions and derailments per train-kilometre was -5.6 % per year from 1990-2019, with a 95 % confidence interval of -7.1 % to -4.2 %. The estimated accident rate in 2019 was 0.85 fatal collisions or derailments per billion train-kilometres, which represents a fall of 78 % since 1990. This gives an estimated mean number of fatal accidents in Europe in 2019 of 3.89. The data and results for 2010-2019 closely match the extrapolation of the results for 1990-2009, so that in 2009 extrapolation would have given a good forward projection for 2019. By the same argument this paper gives a forward projection of the mean number of accidents in 2029 of 2.12, assuming no change in train-kilometres, or pro-rata changes with changes in train-kilometres. The paper investigates the causes of accidents. A notable finding is that the proportion of accidents caused by signals passed at danger (SPADs) fell from 40 % in 1990-1999 to 21 % in 2010-2019. This is probably due to the increasing deployment of train protection systems. The number of fatalities in individual accidents has a skew distribution: most accidents have a small number of fatalities, but a few have a large number. The overall observed number of fatalities per accident is 4.23, and there is no indication that this mean changes with time. This implies that the mean number of fatalities per year has the same downward trend of 5.6 % per year as the mean number of accidents per year., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Customer-facing train crew members have to follow strict procedures to guarantee that trains are safe and run on time. They are also responsible for revenue protection and customer care. Human factors and ergonomics research are instrumental to understand the safety-critical aspects and improve work. We bring user experience research and personas to describe how train crew perceive their routines and how new technology may impact them. We conducted 7 hours of interviews and 30 hours of shadowing observations with the train crew ( N  = 22) to provide an understanding of who are they and to define their experiences. We present the crew's current routines and created two personas to represent them. One is slightly reluctant to adopt the proposed technology, whereas the other is more accepting. Results indicate how such technology may affect crew work ergonomics and experiences, and suggest which valuable aspects should be maintained, for example the positive interactions with passengers. Practitioner summary: This study investigated the work routines of the customer-facing train crew. Interviews and shadowing were conducted with 22 crew from a large operator in the UK. Personas were created to represent them. Results show their preferred activities and how these would be affected by the introduction of new technology. Abbreviations: CH; customer host (onboard catering staff); DOO: driver-only operation; ETA: estimated time of arrival; PTI: platform-train interface; TM: train manager (onboard customer-facing authority); UCD: user-centred design; UX: user experience.

This paper investigates relationships between traverses, delays and fatalities to road users at railway level crossings in Great Britain. A 'traverse' means a passage across a level crossing by a road user, who may be a pedestrian, cyclist, or occupant of a road vehicle. The paper finds that the road users with the highest fatality rate per traverse are pedestrians at passive crossings. Their rate is about three orders of magnitude higher than that of users with the lowest risk, who are road vehicle occupants at railway-controlled crossings. The paper considers the choice between automatic and railway-controlled crossings on public roads. Railway-controlled crossings are widely used in Britain. They are about one order of magnitude safer than automatic crossings, but they impose greater delays on users. A formula is developed to give the overall delay to road users at either type of crossing in terms of the numbers of road users and trains per day, and in terms of the length of time that the crossing must be closed to the road to allow the passage of one train. It is found that automatic level crossings cause substantially less delay than railway-controlled level crossings. The official monetary values of road user delay and of preventing a fatality were used to estimate the valuations of delays and fatalities at hypothetical but representative automatic and railway-controlled crossings. These valuations were then used to explore the effect of replacing representative railway-controlled with automatic crossings or vice-versa. It is found that the valuation of the reduced delays from adopting automatic crossings typically outweighs the valuation of the losses from the increased casualties. However, in practice Britain has chosen to retain a large number of railway-controlled crossings, which implies accepting the delays in return for a good level crossing safety record. Finally, an analysis is carried out to determine the additional risk of typical car and walk journeys that involve traversing a level crossing compared with similar journeys that do not. It is found that the additional risk is small for motor vehicle journeys, but substantial for walk journeys., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Rail disruption management is central to operational continuity and customer satisfaction. Disruption is not a unitary phenomenon - it varies by time, cause, location and complexity of coordination. Effective, user-centred technology for rail disruption must reflect this variety. A repertory grid study was conducted to elicit disruption characteristics. Construct elicitation with a group of experts (n = 7) captured 26 characteristics relevant to rail disruption. A larger group of operational staff (n = 28) rated 10 types of rail incident against the 26 characteristics. The results revealed distinctions such as business impact and public perception, and the importance of management of the disruption over initial detection. There were clear differences between those events that stop the traffic, as opposed to those that only slow the traffic. The results also demonstrate the utility of repertory grid for capturing the characteristics of complex work domains. Practitioner Summary: The aim of the paper is to understand how variety in rail disruption influences socio-technical design. It uses repertory grid to identify and prioritise 26 constructs, and group 10 disruption types, identifying critical factors such as whether an incident stops or merely slows the service, and business reputation.

Background: In 2010, the "Tackling Suicide on the Railways" programme was launched as a joint initiative among Network Rail, the Samaritans and other key organisations such as the British Transport Police and train operators to achieve a 20% reduction in railway suicides from 2010 to 2015 in Great Britain. We report the most recent age and sex specific trends in railway suicide in England and Wales from 2000 to 2013 and examine whether the initiative's target reduction in railway suicides is likely to be achieved., Methods: Population data and suicide mortality data (all methods combined and railway) for England and Wales were obtained from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and used to calculate age and gender specific rates for deaths registered from 2000 to 2013. Data on railway suicides were also obtained from the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) and compared with ONS data. We used joinpoint regression to identify changes in suicide trends across the study period., Results: The railway was used in 4.1% of all suicides in England and Wales (RSSB data were similar to ONS data for most years). Suicides in all persons from all causes decreased from 2000 to 2007, with small increases from 2008 until 2013; this rise was entirely due to an increase in male suicides. Railway suicide rates increased over the entire study period; the proportion of railway suicides in all persons increased from 3.5 to 4.9% during the study period. This trend was also mainly driven by increases in male suicides as female railway suicide rates remained steady over time. The highest age specific railway suicide rates were observed in middle aged men and women. Although there was no conclusive evidence of an increase in ONS railway suicides, RSSB data showed a statistically significant increase in railway suicides in males from 2009 onwards., Conclusion: The continued rise in male railway suicide in England and Wales is concerning, particularly due to the high economic costs and psychological trauma associated with these deaths. The initiative's target of a 20% reduction in railway suicide is unlikely to be achieved.

When a wheel passes over a rail surface irregularity, the resulting vehicle excitations lead to the application of additional system forces to both the track and the vehicle. These forces contribute to an accelerated track geometry deterioration, which in turn results in increased costs. In a recent paper, a clear correlation between the presence of rail irregularities and poor track geometry quality was demonstrated. Rail surface irregularities thereby were quantified by raw data of a chord-based optical measurement system mounted on the regular track recording vehicle in Austria. This paper deals with deconvolution of the recorded data in order to guarantee irregularity quantification without any distortion. Two different deconvolution approaches are developed and validated by additional measurements. Using the deconvoluted data, previously published evaluations were repeated, and the impact of using deconvoluted data instead of chord values was analysed. The correlation between short-wave effects and track geometry quality can not only be confirmed; it is even stronger than predicted by the chord data. The results of the analysis demonstrate that irregularities with amplitudes exceeding 0.08 mm contribute to an accelerated deterioration in track geometry. Amplitudes of a greater severity result in track geometry levels that are up to 120% inferior to the average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is important to China's development vision. Under the BRI, Chinese policymakers have focused on exporting railway systems to developing countries, yet progress on some projects remains limited. This article focuses on delays associated with a planned railway project in Pakistan: the ML-1. It answers the following question: What explains delays in the ML-1 railway project despite strong Chinese interest in it? The article uses a two-step conceptual framework to answer this question. In the first step, it highlights the role of railway bureaucrats involved in project-level negotiations. It shows that local bureaucrats contribute to delays by actively negotiating technical parameters. Chinese firms have limited policy levers to ensure their acquiescence. In the second step, the article places delays in the context of Pakistan's political economy by analysing the role of the political and military elite. It also explores the impact of political change and economic factors on the project. Projects not in sync with the local political elites' development vision face delays. Domestic political changes also contribute to delays. Furthermore, a failure to gain major veto actors' support, coupled with economic problems and differences over financing terms, constrains China's ability to pursue large-scale projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Railway scene understanding is crucial for various applications, including autonomous trains, digital twining, and infrastructure change monitoring. However, the development of the latter is constrained by the lack of annotated datasets and limitations of existing algorithms. To address this challenge, we present Rail3D, the first comprehensive dataset for semantic segmentation in railway environments with a comparative analysis. Rail3D encompasses three distinct railway contexts from Hungary, France, and Belgium, capturing a wide range of railway assets and conditions. With over 288 million annotated points, Rail3D surpasses existing datasets in size and diversity, enabling the training of generalizable machine learning models. We conducted a generic classification with nine universal classes (Ground, Vegetation, Rail, Poles, Wires, Signals, Fence, Installation, and Building) and evaluated the performance of three state-of-the-art models: KPConv (Kernel Point Convolution), LightGBM, and Random Forest. The best performing model, a fine-tuned KPConv, achieved a mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) of 86%. While the LightGBM-based method achieved a mIoU of 71%, outperforming Random Forest. This study will benefit infrastructure experts and railway researchers by providing a comprehensive dataset and benchmarks for 3D semantic segmentation. The data and code are publicly available for France and Hungary, with continuous updates based on user feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cloudification and virtualisation of railway functions have the potential to improve railway operation efficiency, reliability, safety, and security, as well as to enhance passenger experience by offering innovative services. This paper considers issues related to the management and orchestration of railway clouds that host cloudified railway functions. A microservices-based approach to the design of railway cloud management and orchestration functionality is proposed. The basic railway cloud concepts were defined, and functionality related to the basic orchestration of the railway cloud and deployments is analysed in order to derive the requirements of platform resources and workload management. This functionality is further designed in the form of microservices, meaning that they could possibly be used in orchestration applications to enable improvements in scalability, fault isolation, and data security. The design of microservices follows the principles of the Representational State of Transfer (REST) application programming interface (API) as a set of interlinked resources. Resources related to railway cloud orchestration are identified with their associated data, relationships to other resources, and applicable methods. The resources' methods are used in railway applications to implement the required orchestration functionality and to maintain the state of railway cloud orchestration processes. To verify the synthesised microservices, the common orchestration application logic and microservices' logic were modelled, and it was proved that the orchestration processes, which run concurrently, expose equivalent behaviour. The proposed approach was validated using a simulation, aiming to evaluate injected latency as a key performance indicator for the reliability and safety of railway operations. Additionally, some safety and security issues related to railway cloud management and orchestration are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the effects of noise and vibrations caused by railways on the lives of residents around the railways in districts 17 and 18 of Tehran, the capital of Iran which amounts to about 700,000 people, are investigated. In the first stage the actual level of noise was measured at various points which showed above standard levels. Afterward, the authors developed a questionnaire and the survey was conducted from 376 residents. The findings of this study show that the most important factor for the residents adjacent to the railway line is the need for action by the country's railway authorities to reduce and control the adverse effects of noise and vibration. Also, the analysis of inferential statistics performed by chi-square test shows that the variables of gender and proximity of residence or workplace or both to the railway do not affect any of the railway noise or vibration dissatisfaction. The age variable also has no effect on noise dissatisfaction but does impact on vibration. Finally, distance from the railway affects both disaffection from noise and vibration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The meeting of the Ottoman Empire with the railway is in the middle of the XIX. century. The railway lines, which were used commercially as a priority area, were used to reflect the military and state power of the II. Abdulhamit. In the First World War, railway lines played an important role in the war, in the transport of military equipment and the army. In the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Periods, the railway, in a sense, became one of the main points of the nation-state building process. The railway, which was used as both military superiority and propaganda in the National Struggle, became the most important area with the establishment of the Republic administration. This study has been prepared in order to reflect for what purposes the railway is used and at what point its functionality is in the nation-state building paradigm. In the study, the foundation of the Ottoman railway policy and its transformation in the Republican Period are included. Starting from the railway policy of the Republican Period, it has been tried to express with examples how important the railway network is in the nation-state building process. In addition, the importance of the railway network in the transfer of the Republican space ideology to other Anatolian cities was mentioned. In this study, the effect of the central cities on the surrounding cities is included in the economy, population and socio-cultural gains gained thanks to the railway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the financial performance and economic impact of British investment in the Colombian National Railway Company, the largest British direct investment in Colombia during the first period of globalisation. It aims to ascertain the railway's impact on the regional economy and explain why it failed as a going concern. It explores three dimensions: the use of guaranteed railway bonds, the financial performance of the company, and the economic impact within different sectors of the local economy. The article implements existing methods such as financial analysis, internal rate of return, social savings, counterfactual analysis, and tailors these to a case study methodology for a micro business history of a single company. The article provides three main conclusions. Railway bond guarantees were critical to completion of the railway but detrimental to its long-term financial viability. The company was operationally profitable but stymied by construction delays. The railway contributed to growth of the export sector, internal agricultural trade, and government revenues. Contributions include tailoring the social savings method to a local rather than national focus, re-evaluation of the role of railways in Colombian economic growth, and exploring the influence of railways on internal trade within Latin American economies. Supplemental data for this article is available online at .This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the presentation of key results of the project of applied research oriented on evaluation of the increased safety and reliability of the railway network due to the implementation of relevant railway network projects and their projection into the investment project socio-economic evaluation using Cost-Benefit Analysis. The subject research described in the article is the design and verification of the functionality of the methodological procedure for the evaluation of these benefits for their further use in the assessment of public projects on railways. The methodological part summarizes the basic outputs of the previous research. These outputs were subsequently applied at the formulation of basic rules for the assessment of benefits connected with increased railway reliability and safety, which were later processed into the form of simplified methodological procedure. The simplified approach uses average data on the occurrence impact for the entire railway network, broken down into line and station sections. The functionality of individual approaches was checked on case studies of actually implemented projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food markets were a vital element in the economic life of Britain over many centuries, and the arrival of railways into urban spaces during the nineteenth century provided unprecedented opportunities for them to expand the range and volume of good that they sold. This article examines the impact of railways on these markets during the decades following the arrival of trains into London through a case study of Borough Market. This important London fruit and vegetable market is examined through the prism of its financial records. Detailed analysis of the Market's income produces a timeline for growth, while the records for the goods ported through the Market help to explain the change. The case study also highlights developments in trading techniques at Borough Market that enabled it to prosper during the second half of the nineteenth century, despite limitations placed on its expansion created by the impact of railways on the urban physical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the work of a group of Railwaymen Poets, whose verse has been collected as part of the Piston, Pen and Press project. It explores their writings both as part of an emerging theme of accident and loss poetry surrounding the railways in Victorian culture but also more specifically as interrelated texts produced by workers sharing common experiences. Whilst many wrote about all manner of subjects, not just the railway accident, public fascination with accident reporting allowed them to both pursue their literary endeavours and also to use poetry as a form of catharsis. Their poetry, this paper argues, should be read as a collective expression of emotion around the dangerous and loss-ridden nature of their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transportation can be interpreted as the transfer of goods and people from the place of origin to the destination. The transportation process is a movement from the place of origin, where the transportation activity begins, then to the destination and ends at the end of the transportation activity. This research is a normative legal research that uses a conceptual approach. The understanding of the conceptual approach (conceptual approach) is to move from the views, doctrines that develop in legal science. Research related to the implementation of the minimum service standard policy for transportation of people by train on the Yogyakarta-Solo KRL uses secondary data in the form of laws and regulations, news or related cases on social media, previous research, and other supporting data. Based on observations in accordance with the Minimum Service Standards at PM Transportation Station No. 63 of 2019, it was found that there are two aspects, namely the reliability aspect and the convenience aspect that is in accordance between the implementation and the applicable SPM. The categories are quite appropriate on the safety aspect and the comfort aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the China–Europe route, the sea used to dominate entirely continental transports, but in the last decade the railways started to gain some ground. However, it took number of years that railway volumes grew as significant, and finally coronavirus era (2020–2021) promoted much higher usage. This was the case not only on the main route Poland–China, but also on the more northern and lower-volume routes, such as Finland–China. This research uses regression analysis of the latter route to reveal factors that have an effect on rail container volumes. It is shown that Baltic Dry Index (BDI) and coronavirus related variables have influenced most container volumes on the Finland–China route. Oil price development has also played some sort of role. Interestingly, sea port handling of Finland does not play any significance in the model, nor does foreign trade between countries. Findings could be explained with the low starting ground of service, and dominance of sea transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India and China share about 3,488 km long International Boundary, which has three sectors: Western, Middle and Eastern. The Eastern sector comprises two Northeastern states, that is, Arunachal Pradesh measuring 1,124 kms and Sikkim measuring 219 kms, respectively. Due to recent changes in the geopolitical relationship with China, border management and transport infrastructure development have occupied centre stage. In recent years, the Government of India has taken initiatives to develop railway infrastructure in Northeast India. The study will focus on the role of railway transportation in Sino-Indian geopolitical competition. The study is based on secondary data collected from the office of General Manager, Northeast Frontier Railway, the Census of India and reports of Memorandums of Understanding between India and China. The study reveals that railway infrastructure along the border creates geo-psychological pressures on both countries, influencing the divergent geopolitical relationship between India and China. Railway diplomacy is a tool kit of critical geopolitics which reveals the contours of geopolitical competition in borderlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Exacta is the property of Exacta - Engenharia de Producao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

According to data from the National Association of Railway Carriers - ANTF, the Brazilian rail network is composed of 30,557 km, being distributed in 15 networks granted to the private initiative. Of this total, about 39% (8,335.9 km) are without traffic or with low demand and sometimes completely deteriorated. Given the proximity of the end of the current railway concession contracts, studies for their Early Extension were initiated. In this context, the evaluation of stretches that are without traffic is a strategic decision, both for companies and for the Union. Thus, the article seeks, through the multi-criteria analysis method PrOPPAGA, to evaluate the economic viability of 5 railway stretches that have little or no traffic based on criteria such as demand and operating costs of the stretches. The methodology is also used to carry out the ordering of the stretches from the most viable to the least economically viable. As a result, it was recommended the return 4 of the 5 excerpts, demonstrating the viability of the method as a tool to aid decision-making in this sector. It should be noted that parameters such as strategic interest and desired profit indicators, which can be evaluated in future research, were not incorporated into the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of space weather impacts on ground‐based infrastructure have been largely focused on power networks and pipelines, but railway signaling systems are also affected, with misoperations observed in several countries. This paper advances recent theoretical work on geomagnetically induced currents in railway signaling systems by modeling realistic railway lines with parameters from current industrial standards. Focusing on two example lines in the United Kingdom with different locations and orientation, a range of uniform electric fields are simulated along each modeled line. The results show that misoperations could be caused by geomagnetic interference at disturbance levels expected to recur over timescales of several decades. We also demonstrate that the UK estimate for the geoelectric field induced by a 1 in 100‐year extreme storm would be strong enough to cause widespread signal misoperations in both lines studied. Plain Language Summary: Naturally occurring geomagnetic disturbances caused by space weather can interfere with technological infrastructure in space and on Earth. Previous measurements show that railways in several countries have been impacted, with geomagnetic interference in signaling systems causing wrong signals to be shown. Signaling misoperations can occur when currents that are induced in the rails by space weather interfere with the preset currents from railway infrastructure used to detect trains. This study demonstrates a model that analyses the impacts of geomagnetic activity on two railway lines in the United Kingdom with different orientation and location. The results show that the signaling systems on both lines are susceptible to misoperations caused by geomagnetic interference with a recurrence timescale of several decades. The UK estimates for a 1 in 100 years extreme storm were strong enough to cause a large number of signal misoperations in both lines. Key Points: A model has been set up to examine geomagnetic effects on DC signaling systems on AC‐electrified railwaysSignal misoperations occurred in both modeled UK railway lines when electric fields expected to arise once every 30 years were appliedExtreme 1 in 100‐year geoelectric fields would cause a large number of signal misoperations in both UK railway lines studied [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strengthening of the railway mode is one of the main policies that can help to achieve more sustainable future mobility. A methodology is presented to estimate future transport demand scenarios over the medium (2030) and long term (2050) considering three trip lengths: urban, regional, and long distance for two trip purposes: work and leisure. The objective of the scenarios is to answer the question: would railways benefit from a 10% drop in car usage? Qualitative techniques have been applied, based on in-depth interviews and focus groups, as well as a stated preference survey where the people sampled answered to different scenarios which included the presence of a new train, with a high level of service, and other possible new modes of transport such as autonomous cars and buses. The results obtained using Best-Worst discrete choice models show that the rail mode could capture a significant part of the demand from the car over all three journey lengths, but especially for long distance, if the new rail mode were introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the increasing importance of railways in the global context, either as a means of transport or as a tourist product, this paper aims to provide an alternative to the closure of the Aranjuez-Cuenca-Utiel railway in Spain. From the point of view of sustainable tourism, it is intended to highlight the role of this railway as a backbone of territorial socioeconomic development. The recovery and enhancement of the Portuguese Duero line is presented as an example for the future of the Cuenca's Province railway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greenhouse gas emissions, acidification, and the dispersion of particles are negative side effects of railways that have received notable attention in Europe but are seldom considered in performance evaluations. The objective of this work was to assess the efficiency of European railways involved in the commitment signed by the international railway association (UIC) and The community of European railway and infrastructure companies (CER), considering the action of 14 rail companies to reduce negative externalities. Data envelopment analysis was applied under the framework of a slacks-based measure and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution to account for undesirable outputs and ensure unique rankings. Three different measures were considered: two ordinary energy efficiency models, with and without environmental restrictions, which are input–output ratios, and the eco-efficiency, which is an economic performance-to-environmental impacts ratio. The first two models were found to be similar to each other but different to the eco-efficiency, as a high ordinary efficiency ranking generally is not equivalent to high eco-efficiency. The results indicate that the average performance of the firms is low, but with a considerable temporal growth which is driven by environmental factors. Several policy-making implications are addressed to assist railway efficiency improvements and avoid anomalies in environmental performance evaluations. This data envelopment analysis application is the first to incorporate several air pollutants in railway efficiency assessment. Time-series evolution of the efficiency scores for railway companies involved in the UIC-CER commitment during 2011–2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the latest methods of handling aggregate from railway beds. The updated waste management methods are based on the new Act No. 541/2020 Coll. and its implementation in operation. Attention is paid to the hierarchy of the methods of handling ballast from railway superstructure, new normative documents and regulations in the implementation of maintenance and reconstruction of railway lines. The article also deals with the possibilities of using old materials for new purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this survey-based study, passenger awareness and acceptability of potential teleoperation services in the railway domain were analyzed. The literature on the important factors for the acceptability of automated transport was reviewed. These factors were adapted to teleoperation in the railway domain. An online survey was conducted for obtaining passengers' views on automated rail transport and the remote control of trains. A choice-based conjoint analysis was conducted to obtain user preferences regarding a potential teleoperation service. Overall, the teleoperation system and its capabilities received positive feedback. While increased resilience and reliability of rail services were identified as potential opportunities for higher acceptance, safety and security concerns of prospective passengers were highlighted as influencing factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opening up of the railway to competition in Europe has been accompanied by many technical challenges never before seen in the railway field. One of these challenges concerns precise energy metering. As European railways have been a monopoly until now, the current systems can only measure the energy consumption of a single operator. In accordance with European law, the installation of an energy meter has been mandatory in new or refurbished rolling stocks since 2014. Nevertheless, these energy meters are still not fully reliable, with misreadings and missing readings being common occurrences. To address the problem of energy metering data reliability, this paper presents a method for validating the reading measurement based on a physical model and validates it in two different case studies. For the issue of energy metering data availability, different estimators are developed, and their performance are shown with the aim of calculating the missing consumptions for both case studies. Finally, the paper suggests how these methods may be implemented in other types of trains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of TST - Transportes, Servicios y Telecomunicaciones is the property of Asociacion Iberica de Historia Ferroviaria and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Railway systems form an important means of transport across the world. However, congestions or disruptions may significantly decrease these systems' efficiencies, making predicting and understanding the resulting train delays a priority for railway organisations. Delays are studied in a wide variety of models, which usually simulate trains as discrete agents carrying delays. In contrast, in this paper, we define a novel model for studying delays, where they spread across the railway network via a diffusion-like process. This type of modelling has various advantages such as quick computation and ease of applying various statistical tools like spectral methods, but it also comes with limitations related to the directional and discrete nature of delays and the trains carrying them. We apply the model to the Belgian railways and study its performance in simulating the delay propagation in severely disrupted railway situations. In particular, we discuss the role of spatial aggregation by proposing to cluster the Belgian railway system into sets of stations and adapt the model accordingly. We find that such aggregation significantly increases the model's performance. For some particular situations, non-trivial optimal levels of spatial resolution are found on which the model performs best. Our results show the potential of this type of delay modelling to understand large-scale properties of railway systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Memoria em Rede is the property of Revista Memoria em Rede and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Shift2Rail is a joint undertaking funded by the EU via its Horizon 2020 program and by main railway stakeholders. Several Shift2Rail projects aim to investigate the application of formal methods to new ERTMS/ETCS railway signalling systems that promise to move European railway forward by guaranteeing high capacity, low cost and improved reliability. We explore the ERTMS/ETCS level 3 full moving block specifications stemming from different Shift2Rail projects using Uppaal and statistical model checking. The results range from novel rigorously formalised requirements to an operational model formally verified against scenarios with multiple trains on a single railway line. From the gained experience, we have distilled future research goals to improve the formal specification and verification of real-time systems, and we discuss some barriers concerning a possible uptake of formal methods and tools in the railway industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European dwarf mantis Ameles spallanzania (Rossi) (Mantodea Mantidae) is a European-Mediterranean species that has shown rapid expansion in Italy over the past few decades. Its rapid diffusion in the northern peninsula seems to be linked to artificial communication routes, such as railways. This article reports the first records of this species in the Western Alps (Susa Valley), in the Natura 2000 site IT1110030. Some surveys were carried out on the area of presence and a generalized linear model (GLM) was implemented to investigate the relationship between the habitat and its presence-absence. The results indicate a preference for sparsely and vegetated environments with presence of flowering plants typical of xeric areas. The proximity of some observations to the railways suggests that the new presence data may be related to a new colonization rather than a relict population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport networks can play an important role in responses to extreme climate events, especially when governments own the network and intervene directly. Railways occupied a central place in Australian rural development by the late nineteenth century, a topic that has been discussed widely by scholars of economic history. Much less is known about their contribution during the severe drought crises faced by rural communities. We investigate the role railways played during the Federation Drought of 1895-1903 in sustaining Australia's largest export industry, pastoralism. Government ownership of the railways enabled subsidies to be offered for the movement of livestock from drought areas and fodder to those areas. These policies assisted the rapid recovery of pastoral output and contributed to longer-term industry improvements. The intervention, however, came at significant financial cost to the railways, which was borne for the public good as part of an economic developmental purpose. The costs and benefits of drought relief policies continue to be debated today; our study demonstrates the major role transport networks can play in response to extreme climate events, both for immediate relief and in shaping subsequent behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Secuencia: Revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales is the property of Instituto de Investigaciones - Dr. Jose M. Luis Mora and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban History Review / Revue d'Histoire Urbaine is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Planning transport infrastructure development involves high levels of uncertainty due to socioeconomic, environmental, and technological changes. Methodologies currently used in transport planning often have minimal consideration for adaptiveness, leading to costly redesigns or cancellation of entire projects. Presented herein is the investigation of the applicability of dynamic adaptive policy pathways, which is a methodology predominantly used in the field of flood-risk planning, to long-term transport infrastructure planning. Specifically, the paper investigates whether this methodology could facilitate ongoing adaptation to variations in service demand and capacity. It demonstrates this by examining future demand and capacity of road and rail travel between Manchester, United Kingdom, and London using publicly available data and information sources. The study shows that dynamic adaptive policy pathways is useful for identifying periods of time of significant capacity vulnerability for the examined transport network in the coming decade. The method is demonstrated to be valuable for identifying the points in time when policy-makers will have to make decisions and for assessing the impact of transport mode switching. This can have implications of cost-saving and improved service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Historical & Cultural Studies an Academic Magazine is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Condition assessment and maintenance planning of railway infrastructure is a prerequisite for safe and reliable train operation. As the loads are constantly increasing, condition assessment of the track must also be further developed. Existing methods can describe the condition of the track well in many cases, but they will reach their limits with faster deterioration processes and shorter time windows for inspection and maintenance, both associated with higher loads. This development can only be countered with an increased understanding of the system and the associated better planning of component specific measures. Among others, short-wave effects of the track need to be considered. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the possibility of describing short-wave effects with an already existing data source. Insulated rail joints, welding joints, switch components, but also rail corrugation of different wavelengths and squat can be detected, evaluated and monitored by a measuring system based on optical distance meters. These assets and wear phenomena form essential parts of track asset management, but still are not described sufficiently by established methods. Although the so-called rail surface measurement system has been installed on the main Austrian measuring car for years, its full potential could not be exploited due to insufficient positioning accuracy. The method presented in this paper intends to change that. This allows for a holistic assessment of track condition when planning maintenance activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congestion in infrastructure capacity is a barrier to entry to markets under liberalization. The Spanish rail infrastructure manager, ADIF AV, has implemented an innovative model to reduce such a barrier. ADIF AV optimized capacity by defining the schedule with the most efficient use of tracks, building packages with such track capacity and putting them for tender. Three railway undertakings, the incumbent and two newcomers, will compete in the high-speed market, increasing at least 55% the number of services. This model can be exported to other countries reforming the rail sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Caucasus, which has an important transition potential but cannot be fully exploited, is at the focal point of the geopolitical and geo-economic interests of the key actors in international relations. The South Caucasus is located at the junction of Europe and Asia, between the Caspian and the Black Sea, between the hydrocarbon-rich Caspian states and their main importers, the EU and Turkey. The region is a strategically important transport hub where communication and trade routes intersect from East to West (ancient Silk Road) and from South to North. Due to its geopolitical location, the South Caucasus is considered to be the carrier of international transport corridors. Railways in the South Caucasus have an important role in the economic development of the region. In this study, the role, development and future prospects of railways along the international transport corridor in the South Caucasus were evaluated. In the first part of the study, the historical development of the railways in the South Caucasus, the geopolitical importance of the railways in the second part, while the third part will focus on how alternative railway lines should be evaluated as a geopolitical element in the South Caucasus. As a result, while new railways and trade corridors emerged in the South Caucasus, it was concluded that by restoring the abandoned lines, Russia and Turkey formed strong alliances and tried to penetrate deeper into the South Caucasus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents partial outputs of an applied research project aimed at evaluating the socio-economic impacts of occurrences emerging on the railway and their reflection into the economic evaluation of railway construction projects. The article builds on the research results presented within previous scientific articles where the unit impacts of sub-categories of occurrences on the Czech railways were determined using a detailed Database of Occurrences for the 2011-2018 period. These impacts were related both to one railway station and one kilometre of the wide line for the occurrence sub-categories. The values obtained were subsequently verified on case studies of specific railway infrastructure projects implemented in the Czech Republic. The results of the case studies raised the need to create an alternative methodology for the evaluation of socio-economic impacts, which would more accurately reflect the real situation on the railway. The aim of the paper is to modify the originally designed methodology for evaluating the socio-economic impacts of occurrences into a new methodology, which would relate the impacts of occurrences only to a standard kilometre of wide line, i.e. without taking account of separate impacts of occurrences on one railway station. The proposed methodology was verified on a case study, which compares the real values of socio-economic impacts emerging on the railway in the period under research, the values determined using the original methodology and the values determined according to the newly modified methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista CESUMAR: Ciências Humanas e Sociais Aplicadas is the property of Revista Cesumar - Ciencias Humanas e Sociais Aplicadas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Railway applications are in continuous evolution with the aim of offering a more efficient, sustainable, and safer transportation system for the users. Generally, these applications are constantly exchanging information between the systems onboard the train and the trackside through a wireless communication. Nowadays, Global System for Mobile communications-Railway (GSM-R) is the technology used by European Train Control System (ETCS), but it is becoming obsolete. Therefore, alternatives for this technology have to be found for the different railway applications. Its natural evolution is to move forward with the latest technology deployed: Long-Term Evolution (LTE), which the Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMN) have already deployed. Therefore, testing the performance of this communication technology in the railway environment could be useful to assess its suitability and reduce the cost of railway network dedicated deployment. In order to do that, a methodology to characterize the communication environment is proposed. The main goal is to measure geolocated impairments of any communication channel in a railway environment being able to determine its behavior of the different communication technologies and find out possible coverage issues. Moreover, it could help in the selection of suitable communication technology for railway. This paper presents a brief description of the communication for railways and its QoS parameters for performance measuring. Afterward, the testing methodology is described, and then, the communication channel measurement campaign on a real track in Spain where the railway environment is variable is presented (tunnels, rural/urban area...). Finally, the measurements and results on this real track in Spain are shown. The results provide suitability of the 4G technologies based on the delay requirements for the implementation of ETCS over it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In DB Station & Service AG, the CJEU will have to decide on the relationship between EU regulatory law – namely Directive 2001/14 – that strives to concentrate decisions on the lawfulness of infrastructure access charges with the regulatory authority, and private damage claims based on a concurrent violation of Article 102 TFEU. The referring court – the KG Berlin – proposes that national civil courts may only award competition law damages once the regulatory authority has established the illegality of the charges under regulatory law. This article argues that the KG Berlin thereby misconceives the hierarchy of norms under EU law and fails to recognise the rights conferred upon individuals by the EU competition rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fourth industrial revolution is changing the way industries face their problems, including maintenance. The railway industry is moving to adopt this new industry model. The new trains are designed, manufactured, and maintained following an Industry 4.0 methodology, but most of the current trains in operation were not designed with this technological philosophy, so they must be adapted to it. In this paper, a new methodology for adapting a high-speed train to Industry 4.0 is proposed. That way, a train manufactured before this new paradigm can seize the advantages of Maintenance 4.0. This methodology is based on four stages (physical system, digital twin, information and communication technology infrastructure, and diagnosis) that comprise the required processes to digitalize a railway vehicle and that share information between them. The characteristics that the data acquisition and communication systems must fulfil are described, as well as the original signal processing techniques developed for analysing vibration signals. These techniques allow processing experimental data both in real time and deferred, according to actual maintenance requirements. The methodology is applied to determine the operating condition of a high-speed bogie by combining the signal processing of actual vibration measurements taken during the normal train operation and the data obtained from simulations of the digital twin. The combination of both (experimental data and simulations) allows establishing characteristic indicators that correspond to the normal running of the train and indicators that would correspond to anomalies in the behaviour of the train. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is now more evident than ever before that the organizations that develop or utilize railway signaling systems need to take advantage of modern scientific disciplines and technologies in order to meet transportation demand, improve train services, and re-assure the financial and environmental sustainability of railways. Although several game-changing technologies have emerged both in academic studies and the industry, adoption has differed across industries and sectors, with some of them employing modern tools and extracting their benefits, while others not. While this phenomenon can be attributed to the levels of demand for technological solutions according to the needs of each market, on the other hand, it can be accredited to the unsuccessful attempt to understand how the implementation of adoption itself could take place. In the current article, it is discussed how the study of the adoption of Formal Methods, and the tools that can be developed based on them, can occur in a systematic way in order to extract critical insights for this process. The analysis included in this article is part of the on-going discussion on the systematic study of the adoption of emerging technologies in railways and the currently developed scientific literature on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to review existing publicly available and open artificial intelligence (AI) oriented datasets in different domains and subdomains of the railway sector. The contribution of this paper is an overview of AI-oriented railway data published under Creative Commons (CC) or any other copyright type that entails public availability and freedom of use. These data are of great value for open research and publications related to the application of AI in the railway sector. This paper includes insights on the public railway data: we distinguish different subdomains, including maintenance and inspection, traffic planning and management, safety and security and type of data including numerical, string, image and other. The datasets reviewed cover the last three decades, from January 1990 to January 2021. The study revealed that the number of open datasets is very small in comparison with the available literature related to AI applications in the railway industry. Another shortcoming is the lack of documentation and metadata on public datasets, including information related to missing data, collection schemes and other limitations. This study also presents quantitative data, such as the number of available open datasets divided by railway application, type of data and year of publication. This review also reveals that there are openly available APIs--maintained by government organizations and train operating companies (TOCs)--that can be of great use for data harvesting and can facilitate the creation of large public datasets. These data are usually well-curated real-time data that can greatly contribute to the accuracy of AI models. Furthermore, we conclude that the extension of AI applications in the railway sector merits a centralized hub for publicly available datasets and open APIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comprehensive view of the origins, technical characteristics and functioning of the Siedlce-Bologoye railway line. This railway, with an impressive length of 1.100 km, was built in the years 1902-1907 as a connection between the lands of the Kingdom of Poland and the governorates of central Russia in order to ensure the efficient transport of troops and their supplies given the anticipated war with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The work aims to illustrate to what extent the assumptions of the construction promoters were confirmed and how it was used in particular periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will relate a history of planned railway routes passing through Bangkok or elsewhere in Thailand in pursuit of linking the potentially vast commercial market of China with the transport hub of Singapore. Those plans historically did not come to full fruition. But the current Chinese-backed plans mean that a rail link between China and Singapore is finally likely to become a reality within the coming decade. The benefits for Thailand are contested: while there will be more passenger and freight capacity the financial cost will be high. But there will for the first time in history be a direct rail connection from China to the Malayan peninsula. Indeed in theory it will be possible to board a train in Britain and step off one in Singapore, without having used any other form of transport on the way. Chinese motivations are commercial and geopolitical, as were those of historical schemes by other countries. Unlike historical schemes, however, China looks set to make the planned southeast Asian railway network a reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]