Modernization of Railway Vehicles and its Impact on the Carrier’s Operating Costs in Regional Railway Transport

In November 1994, ABB delivered the first “Networker Express” electric multiple unit from their York (UK) works. The authors describe these units which represent the latest variant of the “Networker family” of electric and diesel multiple units, and incorporate a number of developments to meet the evolving needs of operators and vehicle lessors as the British Rail network is privatised. In particular they can be used on a wide variety of routes and services, hence the name “Universal Networker”.

The United States is experiencing a revival of interest in diesel multiple-unit (DMU) passenger railcars. At the same time, communities are questioning whether diesel makes good sense as they compare the diesel multiple unit with electric rail modes such as light rail or electric multiple units. This study quantifies the emissions into a region from diesel multiple units and the electricity generation for electric rail modes, for oxides of nitrogen (NOx), an ozone precursor; particulate matter (PM); volatile organic compounds (VOCs), another ozone precursor; carbon monoxide (CO); and carbon dioxide (CO2). The study found that emissions attributable to electric rail modes are highly variable and depend on the cleanliness of the electricity generated. The dirtiest electricity pollutes orders of magnitude more than the cleanest. The study conclusion is that emissions from diesel multiple units and electric rail modes are not dramatically different on a per seat mile basis and that the exact comparison will depend on the cleanliness of the electricity generation and the type of diesel multiple unit consist. When compared on a per seat mile basis against electric rail modes using the average electricity generated in the United States, DMUs emit about the same amount of PM, equal or greater amounts of NOx, more CO and VOCs, and less CO2. The study also concludes that the rapidly changing diesel engine emissions standards will result in DMUs being introduced within the next 6 years with PM and NOx emissions that are nearly as low as the cleanest electricity generation today.

The United States is experiencing a revival of interest in diesel multipleunit (DMU) passenger railcars. At the same time, communities are questioning whether diesel makes good sense as they compare the diesel multiple unit with electric rail modes such as light rail or electric multiple units. This study quantifies the emissions into a region from diesel multiple units and the electricity generation for electric rail modes, for oxides of nitrogen (NOx), an ozone precursor; particulate matter (PM); volatile organic compounds (VOCs), another ozone precursor; carbon monoxide (CO); and carbon dioxide (CO2). The study found that emissions attributable to electric rail modes are highly variable and depend on the cleanliness of the electricity generated. The dirtiest electricity pollutes orders of magnitude more than the cleanest. The study conclusion is that emissions from diesel multiple units and electric rail modes are not dramatically different on a per seat mile basis and that the exact comparison will de...

Regional railway transport is one of the important aspects that on the one hand contributes to the economic development of a region, but on the other hand can reduce the quality of life with a disproportionate use of transport modes, mainly in larger agglomerations. In the view of society, regional transport is an important contribution to improving the quality of life of the citizens in the region, as well as its competitiveness and the optimal use of public resources. This paper examines regional railway transport in the Slovak Republic from the different indicators (transport performances, operators, regional railway line length, financing). It aims to understand the factors which influence the economic and social efficiency of regional railway transport. The research was focused on a regional railway line because on the main railway line the costs of the infrastructure for regional and other railway transport cannot be separated. The case study was performed in the Žilina region in which districts with different standards of living are located. The research shows interesting results. The regional railway line which is located in the region with a lower standard of living showed the best utilisation and the lowest loss. We suggest a synergy aspect for operating a regional railway line which takes into account the economic and social factors and interrelationships among subjects participating in the rendition of regional railway transport services.

With a prevailing population growth rate of 1.5% per annum in Colombo Metropolitan Region, improvement of public transportation has become a vital necessity while optimizing the expenditure on hydrocarbon fuels. Presently, Sri Lanka railway transportation system occupies Diesel Multiple Units (DMU). If Electrical Multiple Units (EMU)with regenerative braking are to be employed in place of DMUs, energy can be regenerated by converting kinetic energy of moving EMUs. This research study initially focused at developing a generalized regenerative breaking model to investigate the electrical energy requirement to travel from one railway station to another and thereby how much electrical energy that could be generated using regenerative braking. Model is then checked and validated with internationally accepted norms developed for efficiency improvement figures. Subsequently, the model is simulated between Colombo Fort and Veyangoda railway stations and found that 457.86 kWh of electrical energy can be saved in one trip through regenerative breaking.

Though the motor car I or motor car II of the diesel multiple units （DMUs） has the same objective condition, the difference of the wearing oil, particularly the condition of the calculator software comprehensive processing is a new topic that we should pay attention to. In this article, we have done with the values of ferrographic analysis and spectrometry analysis of motor car I and motor car II of the“New Dawn ’’DMUs ,for example, with the help of the Delphi 7 software and gotten homologous curve diagram at the same condition. We can evaluate the wear degree of diesel engine of the motor car I or motor car II of the DMUs and have a new way to deal with the wearing of the electric multiple units as well as the other types of the DMUs according to the characteristics of ferrographic analysis and spectrometric analysis of the motor cars.

The scheduling problem of electric multiple units (EMU) is one of the key technologies in high-speed railway organization. A reasonable amount of railway equipment is required to maximize the economic benefits of investment in high-speed railway. High-speed EMUs are the most important mobile devices to complete the high-speed transportation tasks, which take a large proportion of railway devices investment. Adopting a reasonable transportation organization plan to increase EMU service efficiency and reduce the procurement amount is an efficient way to decrease high-speed investment and operation costs as well as improve its economic efficiency. Based on the periodicity feature of EMU scheduling, a multi-base, multi-type EMU comprehensive scheduling model for high-speed railway network is presented. The EMU scheduling is processed through computer simulation technology. Meanwhile, by using the ideas and strategies of greedy algorithm, backtracking algorithm and genetic algorithm, the model is solved and optimized. Taking high-speed rail as the simulation example, an EMU scheduling plan and EMU configuration amount is proposed, providing some valuable research results for the comprehensive operation and maintenance management of the EMU on high-speed railway.

Railway noise reduction at the source is the preferred way indicated by the European legislator, although certainly the hardest to be obtained from an engineering point of view. A cost-benefit analysis of the available solutions should drive the political decisions. This paper describes the impact of a specific low noise wheel, with noise reduction effects proven in normal service, on the Life-Cycle Cost of different types of vehicles. The analysis is conducted on several types of passenger rolling stock, i.e. high speed trains, both conventional and tilting, Electrical and Diesel Multiple Units.

Competition in regional passenger rail transport in Germany (Leipzig) and lessons to be drawn for France

Regional railway transport is an indispensable part of the transport process, and its importance is growing year by year. Rail transport is generally considered a sustainable form of mobility with societal benefits in terms of air and climate protection, but there is still room for more efficient energy management. This article deals in more detail with the energy management of regional rail transport. Emphasis is placed on a sustainable operating concept that considers energy consumption and vehicle circulation. Properly set capacity of railway unit allows to significantly reduce energy consumption and operational costs during off-peak hours. Reducing energy consumption has a positive effect on reducing emissions, as even traction electricity is not yet completely emission-free. Solutions for the suburban railway line between Ostrava and Opava in the Czech Republic are examined in this article.

Hydrogen fuel cell multiple unit vehicles are acquiring a central role in the transition process towards carbon neutral trains operation in non-electrified regional railway networks. In addition to their primary role as a transport mean, these vehicles offer significant potential for applications in innovative concepts such as smart grids. Compared to the pure electric propulsion systems, fuel cell technology allows for cogeneration processes by recovering generated heat in addition to the provision of the electrical power. This paper presents the analysis of fuel cell hybrid-electric multiple unit vehicle employed in regional railway transport during regular service, and in vehicle-to-grid application during the off-service hours, providing the electrical and thermal energy for stationary consumers in terminal stations. The system dynamics are modelled using a backward-looking quasi-static simulation approach, with implemented real-time optimization-based control strategy for managing the power flows between different components. In a case study of selected vehicle and railway services in the Netherlands, the fuel cell system showed average hydrogen consumption of 0.4 kg/km, with the overall electrical efficiency of 38.89%. In vehicle-to-grid scenario, the system satisfied complete stationary power demand, and provided about 327 kWh of thermal energy during 2-h operation, reaching the overall cogeneration efficiency of 66.81%.

ABSTRACTIn order to reduce operating costs, railway vehicle operators need to find technical solutions to improve the efficiency of railway diesel multiple units on non-electrified railway routes. This can be achieved by hybridization of diesel multiple unit propulsion systems with electrical energy storage systems to enable brake energy recuperation. After highlighting the state of the art of hybrid railway vehicles and electrical energy storage systems, a simulation model of a generic diesel multiple unit in a 3-car formation is developed and equipped with three types of hybrid power transmissions. Simulations on realistic service profiles with different driving strategies show the potential for fuel consumption reduction for the different transmission types. On a suburban service profile, a 3-car diesel multiple unit is able to achieve simulated fuel savings of up to 24.1% and up to 18.9% on a regional service profile.

The study collected statistics on the actual operation of national railway electric multiple units (EMUs) and compared the energy consumption of different EMU models at different speed levels. An important method for studying the relationship between speed and energy consumption of EMUs has been constructed based on group method of data handling to reflect how the energy consumption of different EMU models changes with speed. The energy consumption of CRH2 and CRH380A EMUs on flat and sloping lines was compared. Moreover, the start-up energy consumption of CRH2 and CRH380A EMUs was compared. The effect of the number of stops of CRH2 and CRH3 EMUs on energy consumption was analyzed. Furthermore, an idea for improving the general expression and calculation methods of traction energy consumption of EMUs was proposed. Finally, suggestions on the construction of a traction energy consumption information system were provided, and the selection of different high-speed EMU models and the reasonable determination of the operating speed were discussed.

The proposed approach aims at simultaneously optimizing 3-D alignments and station locations for a dedicated high-speed railway link between two selected terminal stations. The optimized design of the 3-D alignment for the high-speed link builds on the recent work of the same authors on mountain railway alignment optimization (Pu et al., 2019). The problem of optimizing station locations along a railway route is new and inherently connected with the problem of railway network design and line planning. The latter problem of railway network design and line planning, however, has been neglected in the above approach and generates suboptimal solutions of the alignment design, as well as of the station locations for a (high-speed) railway route. 3-D railway alignment designs can be optimized successfully even for complicated mountain route sections as demonstrated in Pu et al. (2019) for a given design speed. The choice of the design speed for a planned new railway link depends on many factors such as topography, settlement, transport demand and supply, construction and railway technology, railway design standards, costs, and government policy. The design speed of high-speed railway routes has grown historically in stages from 250 km/h at first via 300 km/h in the second up to 350 km/h finally. The choice of a design speed of 350 km/h for the considered high-speed route in the province of Shandong, China, is treated by the authors without any further motivation as input given by the current railway policy and design standards in China. This route section crosses a steep mountain area on around 50% of its length and requires many expensive bridges and tunnels. The authors miss to search for a more efficient alignment design solution based on a lower design speed, for example, 250 km/h, whose estimated overall costs and net present value of the investigated high-speed route would certainly be significantly lower than the alignment solution found for the design speed of 350 km/h! The design of station locations along a (high-speed) railway route depends on the functional design including (i) rank and position in the railway network and line, (ii) passenger transport volume and capacity, (iii) kind, frequency, and speed of line services, (iv) length of trains, (v) number, length, width of platforms, (vi) track layout, design speed, and gradient (Hansen, 2021). The track alignment is only one design variable of stations, while its connectivity in the overall railway line network, attractiveness for passengers from/to other stations, rural and urban accessibility determine its transport performance, operating costs, and revenues. The problem is clearly a multi-objective one for which a Pareto front of best solutions can be expected. However, the described search method simply adds up the benefits and costs of solutions for alignment and station locations based on given unit costs input (Table 2) determined by the authors according to the official code by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction 2012 and a feasibility study report 2019 by the China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group for a different railway project without analyzing the impact of different values and weights for several items. The optimization of railway station locations is closely related to the interstation distance between the stations along the railway line, which depends strongly on the desired operating speed of the trains and (mix of) lines serving the stations. The approach by Song et al. (2022) in this journal completely neglects the role of the planned railway route in the regional (high-speed) railway network and does not analyze the impact of different line services (express, all-stop) on the performance of the terminal and intermediate stations and on train operations by simply assuming that only one type of train serves all stations on the railway route and disregarding access, egress, and waiting times of the passengers at stations when computing the travel times and passenger flows. The proposed optimization model for this dedicated high-speed link only considers two (seemingly isolated) terminal stations and does not clarify whether these are connected to other existing railway lines or are to be extended in the future. Furthermore, line planning within the broader regional (high-speed) railway network has been constrained to simple train operation by only one type of high-speed train between two given terminal stations serving one, two, or three intermediate stations along the selected railway route at the given design speed of 350 km/h. The most important design variables for transport demand (ridership) and railway transport supply (track capacity and train operation) in this corridor as a function of different railway design speed levels would need to be analyzed at first to find the most effective and efficient solution for the number and location of intermediate stations. The impact of the chosen design speed of 350 km/h for the considered short railway route (only 90-km long) and of rather short distances between the high-speed stations on the reachable train speed and energy demand has been completely neglected by the authors. The presented model for optimized station locations has serious deficiencies with respect to the decision variables and constraints of the objective function and fails to deliver an optimized sustainable distribution of high-speed station locations. The ex-ante–determined design speed for such a short railway route and operation by a single type of high-speed trains stopping at all stations based on a given railway design standard in China definitively leads to suboptimal train speed profiles with quite short distances cruising at design speed or some interstation distances, where the high-speed trains cannot even reach the given design speed of 350 km/h and waste extra traction energy! During the last two decades, the planning paradigm for railway links and lines has shifted from “first construction, then operation” to timetable-based planning and design that requires consideration and analysis of much more operation variables such as an operational program for the network, train line services, and stations. See official BAHN (2000) Development Plan for the Swiss railway network and the integration of the high-speed railway line Zurich–Berne into the existing national railway network in Switzerland on the one hand and connections to High-Speed Railway (HSR) lines in neighboring countries like Germany, France, and Italy (Montanaro, 2018), as well as Network Rail's shift from engineering toward putting passengers first in the United Kingdom (Turner, 2020). The approach for Integrated Railway Rapid Transit Network Design and Line Planning Problem by Canca et al. (2019) should also be considered for the planning and design of new high-speed railway lines. A design of the railway route alignment that is predetermined by the prevailing high-speed railway planning design standard of the Chinese government. Instead, developing an innovative optimization model is necessary that can estimate the impact of different levels of (high-speed) railway design speed on the net present value of planned new railway routes. The lack of a comprehensive analysis of the regional high-speed railway network including a thorough evaluation of the impact of sustainable line planning options on railway transport demand and supply that are essential input for a consistent optimization of track alignment design and choice of (intermediate) station locations on (high-speed) railway routes.

In modern railway transportations, electric locomotives and electric multiple units(EMU) become increasingly popular due to the advantages of high efficiency, high speed, environment friendly, high reliability and low maintenance cost. However, electric locomotives and EMU require electric railways and the stable large capacity power supply. Thus, internal combustion (IC) locomotives and multiple units(MU)are still predominant in economically undeveloped countries and areas. Furthermore, considering electric line repair need for the electrified transportation and the national security and strategy, IC locomotives and MU are still promising in terms of market occupancy. Modern IC locomotives and MU use fuel oil to provide energy and are driven by electric traction, while the generator will generate electricity via diesel engine (diesel engine and the generator constructing the IC power pack). Electrically excited (EE) generators are adopted in conventional IC power packs. With the development of power electronics and control techniques, novel IC power packs with permanent magnet (PM) generators rise. Since PM generators have the merits of simple structure, high efficiency, small volume, low weight, high reliability and low maintenance cost, the next generation of IC power packs more and more adopt PM generators. This paper focuses on the PM generators used in novel railway transportation IC power packs. The comparison between conventional EE and PM generators, two rectification methods for PM generators and the research and applications of PM generators are discussed. All of these can provide the reference for novel IC power packs in railway transportation development and applications.