Operation of freight railways in densely used mixed traffic networks – An impact model to quantify changes in freight train characteristics

Abstract

As freight transport is a growing challenge for metropolitan areas, there are calls to reintegrate rail freight into urban logistics. The use of railway systems in urban logistics should help to mitigate negative externalities such as noise, congestion and air pollution. Additional strengths of rail transport are the use of road-independent infrastructure, providing a reliable secondary mean of transport, and the high energy efficiency. A number of different concepts have been outlined – mostly conceptually, focussing on the intermodal interface, i.e. urban road-rail terminals or urban cross docks.This paper focuses on the rail side of urban logistics. It highlights the operational and technical challenges of operating freight trains in densely used railway networks with mixed traffic, against the background of railway network capacity consumption. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the characteristics of freight train on capacity consumption in mixed traffic railway networks. It devises an impact model to identify the drivers of capacity consumption and consequently to present effective ways to make better use of capacity in urban railway networks.To maximise the number of train paths in a mixed-traffic network, the technical and operational discrepancies between passenger and freight rail transport need to be reduced. Since passenger transport is the predominant user of railway networks in metropolitan areas, freight trains are required to adapt to the characteristics of passenger trains. A variation of the factors speed, acceleration, deceleration and train length has shown that the relative capacity consumption of freight trains can be reduced. The impacts of the factors considered however differ significantly.