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The impact of railway incidents on train delays : A case of the Swedish Railway Network

Mukunzi, Grace LU and Palmqvist, Carl William LU orcid (2024) In Journal of Rail Transport Planning and Management 30.
Abstract

A foreseeable challenge with a substantial increase in railway mode share will be how to uphold punctuality. Higher volumes of train traffic will result in timetables that are more sensitive to disruptions; whose severity and frequency is also expected to increase in light of greater asset utilization and climate change. This calls for a definitive understanding of the relationship between incidents and train delays as a prerequisite to developing robust timetables and disruption management strategies. In this paper we propose a novel framework for quantifying the impact of railway incidents on train delays. Using a case of the Swedish Railway Network, we compare the impact of different incidents on train delays. The impact of delay is... (More)

A foreseeable challenge with a substantial increase in railway mode share will be how to uphold punctuality. Higher volumes of train traffic will result in timetables that are more sensitive to disruptions; whose severity and frequency is also expected to increase in light of greater asset utilization and climate change. This calls for a definitive understanding of the relationship between incidents and train delays as a prerequisite to developing robust timetables and disruption management strategies. In this paper we propose a novel framework for quantifying the impact of railway incidents on train delays. Using a case of the Swedish Railway Network, we compare the impact of different incidents on train delays. The impact of delay is defined as a factor of the incident rate, exposure rate, delay rate and historical average delay minutes per incident. A logistic model that estimates the probability of delay for any train, in the event of a failure, is also developed. Snow on track was established as most critical, resulting in the highest normalized delay minutes per train and the largest increase in the odds of delay for individual trains. The proposed framework & approach can be applied to other networks.

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author
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organization
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type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Journal of Rail Transport Planning and Management
volume
30
article number
100445
pages
14 pages
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85189087426
ISSN
2210-9706
DOI
10.1016/j.jrtpm.2024.100445
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Authors
id
b570c880-a7a3-46b6-8f6d-3d6cbc15a31a
date added to LUP
2024-04-11 08:42:08
date last changed
2024-04-11 15:49:19
@article{b570c880-a7a3-46b6-8f6d-3d6cbc15a31a,
  abstract     = {{<p>A foreseeable challenge with a substantial increase in railway mode share will be how to uphold punctuality. Higher volumes of train traffic will result in timetables that are more sensitive to disruptions; whose severity and frequency is also expected to increase in light of greater asset utilization and climate change. This calls for a definitive understanding of the relationship between incidents and train delays as a prerequisite to developing robust timetables and disruption management strategies. In this paper we propose a novel framework for quantifying the impact of railway incidents on train delays. Using a case of the Swedish Railway Network, we compare the impact of different incidents on train delays. The impact of delay is defined as a factor of the incident rate, exposure rate, delay rate and historical average delay minutes per incident. A logistic model that estimates the probability of delay for any train, in the event of a failure, is also developed. Snow on track was established as most critical, resulting in the highest normalized delay minutes per train and the largest increase in the odds of delay for individual trains. The proposed framework &amp; approach can be applied to other networks.</p>}},
  author       = {{Mukunzi, Grace and Palmqvist, Carl William}},
  issn         = {{2210-9706}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Journal of Rail Transport Planning and Management}},
  title        = {{The impact of railway incidents on train delays : A case of the Swedish Railway Network}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrtpm.2024.100445}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.jrtpm.2024.100445}},
  volume       = {{30}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}