Current Rail Research Articles

Analysis of Rail Dynamic Deformation During Electromagnetic Launch

During the process of launching electromagnetic railguns, armatures move along rails under thrust when current pass rails; in the meantime, certain deformation will take place on the rails, which armatures pass as they are under the action of the Lorentz force and armature pressure. Since the external support structure of rail gun provides flexible support for the rails, they can be simplified into elastic foundation beams. Based on the theories of electromagnetic field and heat transfer, the forces on rails can be derived. The dynamic response equation is developed according to the theory of elastic mechanics to evaluate the rail deflection during the launch, and thus to obtain the dynamic deformation of the rails. Based on the specific parameters and characteristics of launchers, a deflection calculation formula is derived. Related experimental data obtained are substituted into the formula to calculate the rail deflection of the rails during the process of launch. By doing so, the dynamic response of the rails under moving load is captured. A laser vibrometer is utilized to measure the deformation of rails during the process of launch. The measured data of rail deformation at the measuring points are obtained and compared with theoretical calculation results.

Hedonic value of high-speed rail services: Quantitative analysis of the students’ domestic tourist attractiveness of the main Italian cities

High-Speed Rail (HSR) is a transport mode that operates significantly faster than traditional services, using integrated and specialized rolling stock, and often dedicated tracks. These rapid transit services have profoundly impacted mobility habits on medium-long range journeys, and have also brought about social, economic, and environmental changes in the geographical areas involved. HSR has become a successful “brand”, including not only faster trains, but also a number of other on-board services that increase rail attractiveness (e.g. restaurants, wi-fi connection, free newspapers, cinema, business areas and relaxation lounges).Starting from these considerations, in this research we investigated the conjecture according to which a traveler, in choosing an HSR service to reach a destination (against a traditional rail service, or other competing transport modes), is not only influenced by its original peculiarity as a “faster train” service, but also takes into account the presence of all the “hedonic” characteristics of the service. That said, the literature in transportation modeling has yet to analyze the impact of hedonic quality on travelers’ behavior by quantifying whether and to what extent it increases their propensity to use HSR services.Aim of this research was twofold: i) to quantify, for the first time in the literature, the hedonic value of an HSR service related to a domestic tourist trip, as compared to more conventional levels of service and attractiveness attributes; ii) investigate the domestic tourist attractiveness of the main Italian cities, evaluating which attributes influence the perception of a city as a domestic tourist destination. The application case study consists in the supply of current rail services (HSR vs. traditional) between the 11 main Italian cities in terms of tourist destination. On the basis of an RP&SP survey, carried out among university students at national scale, a binomial logit model was specified with serial correlation in residuals, estimating whether or not the cities in the panel were perceived as possible destinations for a domestic tourist trips made by train.The estimation results show that city-specific attractiveness attributes (entertainment and restaurant rate; number of sites of interests; crime rate), and level of services variables (e.g. travel time and cost; HSR brand ) significantly influence the perception of a city as a possible destination for a domestic tourist trip by train. Furthermore, the average monetary value for the “pure preference” for the HSR brand (faster trains, high frequency, and on-board services) is about 22Euros/trip, while the hedonic value relative only to on-board services is about 12Euros/trip , underlining that the “faster train” is only one of the perceived attributes of HSR services. Overall, the willingness to pay for an HSR ticket is up to 40% greater than that for a traditional one. Furthermore, tourists are willing to spend 2.2h more travelling on an HSR train to reach their destinations. The estimation results show that there is also a “distance traveled effect”; the pure preference for HSR services increases in value from 9Euros/trip to 13Euros/trip (+44%) for distances traveled greater than 400km. If confirmed, these results allow the conclusion to be drawn that the “catchment area” of cities on HSR networks is larger than that served by traditional rail.

Team reflection makes resilience-related knowledge explicit through collaborative sensemaking: observation study at a rail post

Resilience is defined as the ability to adaptively deal with system boundaries in the face of the unexpected and unforeseen (Branlat and Woods in AAAI Fall Sympoisum, 2010. http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/FSS/FSS10/paper/viewPaper/2238). We hypothesize that drawing upon resilience-related knowledge is a prerequisite for such adaptivity. This paper proposes team reflection (Ellis et al. in Curr Dir Psychol Sci 23(1):67–72, 2014) as a macrocognitive function to make the resilience-related knowledge explicit. This knowledge is implicitly available with individual team members active at the sharp end but is never explicitly shared due to invisibility of goal-relevant constraints. To overcome this invisibility, we suggest an application that makes changes in the current rail socio-technical system visible in terms of the three system boundaries, a variation of the originally proposed by Rasmussen (Saf Sci 27(2/3):183–213, 1997): safety, performance and workload. This allows a team of rail signallers to analyse movements towards system boundaries and share knowledge on these movements. An observational study at a rail control post was conducted to assess the value of team reflection in making resilience-related knowledge explicit. For this purpose, we developed a first prototype of the application concerning the performance boundary only. Using naturalistic observations of a team during a week, we observed how they reflected at the end of their shift on salient system changes. A global content analysis was used to show the relevance of the content to resilience and to test the increase in the resilience-related knowledge throughout the observation period. A specific case of a human approaching the rail tracks, as a potential suicide, was analysed in detail. The results show the value of team reflection on system movements towards their boundaries, thus making goal-relevant constrained knowledge explicit within the operational rail environment.

Future Parking Demand at Rail Stations in Klang Valley

Klang Valley, Malaysia is currently undergoing a massive development of rail transportation system expansion where the current integrated rail transit system will see new extensions of two MRT lines and an LRT line by year 2020. By year 2017, the first MRT line will be ready to run with 31 new rail stations connected to the current passenger rail network. The existing Park and Ride facilities in Klang Valley are commonly known as being unable to sufficiently cater for the current parking space demand. Therefore, with the expansion of many additional rail stations which are rapidly under construction, there are doubts that the future parking space at rail stations will be able to accommodate the sudden rise of rail passengers. Although the authorities are increasing parking bays at various locations, will the future parking demand at rail stations be sufficient? This paper studies the factors influencing parking demand in terms of population, car ownership, new car registrations and passenger rail ridership and estimating the future parking demand using Linear Regression method. Result shows that the forecasted parking demand at rail stations after the implementation of the first new MRT system in 2017 is 2.7 times more than in 2014.

Compensation of Assembly Tolerances in Magnetic Current Sensors with External Conductor

Small-sized SMD current sensor ICs offer a cost effective solution for several current sensing applications utilizing standard printed circuit board (PCB) technology. The key to measurement-range scalability is to use a current rail external to the sensor package instead of being an integral part of the package. However, state of the art PCB mounting processes show assembly tolerances, which may cause several percent of error in the sensitivity. Such level of errors is usually not tolerable by the electronics manufacturers, so the best they can do is a final End-Of-Line (EOL) calibration after mounting, where specific current levels need to be set accurately and forced through the device. This paper presents the idea of compensation of assembly tolerances as a potential counteraction already on IC-level. The method itself is based on additional sensing-elements integrated onto the die beside the main ones: their signals are combined with the main sensor signals to get the compensated current signal. Adopting this principle, the costly and time-consuming EOL calibration can be abandoned resulting in increased IC-product value.

A study on the correlation between spatial configuration and rail passenger volume in different scales - take Fuxia region as an example

Based on the current commercial space distribution data and rail passenger volume of seven cities (Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Putian, Fuqing, and Jinjiang) in Fuxia region, this paper analyses the correlation between railway station passenger volume with calculated results of space syntax and commercial space distribution with space syntax segment analysis model. On the macroscopic scale of city group, based on the rail passenger volume of 2011, and the analysed results of population and road traffic space of each city, this study verifies the space syntax segment model's influences on railway station passenger volume in large-scale; on the microscopic scale inside each city, based on the point of interest (POI) data of each function, this study analyses the correlation between functions' spatial aggregation and the mixed transportation system formed by roads and railway stations, and evaluates the degree of functions' distribution influenced by railway station location and relevant spatial parameters. With empirical study, this paper demonstrates space syntax model's possibility and rationality in large regional scale's application, meanwhile, discusses the reason of different results formed by different scales' application, and the future directions for improvement.

Assessing the impact of the 2011 EU Transport White Paper - a rail freight demand forecast up to 2050 for the EU27

This paper presents a rail freight forecast for the EU27 for the period up to 2050. Rail freight’s market share of the transport sector in Europe has been falling or remained stagnant since 1970. In contrast, the share of road freight has been increasing. As rail freight transport is generally considered an environmentally friendly option, various measures have been implemented for more than two decades, at national and European level, to encourage a modal shift from road to rail. In the latest EU Transport White paper policy paper of 2011, an optimistic target is set for greater use of rail freight transport, in both the near and the longer term future. Specifically: a modal shift, from road to rail, and waterway transport, of 30 % by 2030 and 50 % by 2050 - for distances greater than 300 km. With the aforesaid policy objectives, the current research examines the possible effects of these aims in terms of future levels of rail freight demand. This research relies heavily upon the EU TRANS-TOOLS modelling tool and explores three scenarios. A Reference scenario - with no significant change to current rail freight policy, infrastructure and existing trends is considered alongside two White Paper scenarios (High and Low) which take more optimistic views of the white paper policy objectives. The study finds that the Reference and White Paper Low scenarios demonstrate similar results in terms of growth and modal split. In stark contrast, the White paper High scenario results show that demand for rail freight services almost doubles compared to the Reference values. The rail sector is expected to attract new commodities from road transport such as foodstuffs and building and transport materials. To meet this demand, the rail industry - including operators, infrastructure managers and governments - will have to invest in technologies, infrastructure and terminals with a view to significantly increasing productivity against current levels.

Dynamic Performances of the Electromagnetic Rail Launcher

To obtain a rail-type electromagnetic launcher with large electrodynamic force, low temperature rise, and high structure strength, this paper investigates the performance of a pulsed current electromagnetic rail launcher (EMRL). According to the investigation, the inductance gradient and current-carrying capacity are determined. Based on the analysis of mechanical properties of the EMRL, armature, and bolt, the corresponding conclusions are achieved. These conclusions will establish the foundation for further research on the mechanism of the rail-type electromagnetic launcher.

Paving Over the Tracks: A Better Use of Britain's Railways?

There is strong evidence that allowing some commuter railways to be converted into busways would provide higher capacity at lower cost, reduce fares for passengers and cut subsidies from taxpayers. A related policy of phasing out government support for the railways could save around £6 billion a year. It is estimated that busway fares would be at least 40 per cent cheaper than current rail fares, while on longer journeys all passengers could expect to be seated. In combination with the existing road network, busways would facilitate fast and direct services into city centres from suburbs and villages not currently linked by rail, increasing the choice of routes and reducing overall journey times for many commuters. Express coaches on congestion-free infrastructure could match the train for speed except on the longest journeys, and would also deliver much more frequent services. For a given traffic volume, busways would typically require far less land than rail, both at terminals and along routes. The sale of surplus land would further enhance the commercial case for conversion. The environmental gains could be substantial. High-volume bus/coach transport would appear to be more energy efficient than rail when the full impact of operating the networks is compared. Lower fares and a greater number of direct routes could also reduce car use. In some locations, spare busway capacity could be sold to other road users, diverting traffic from congested urban streets and delivering further environmental benefits.

Beyond the Crossing: A Cognitive Work Analysis of Rail Level Crossing Systems

Progress is not being made on the longstanding problem of collisions between people and trains at rail level crossings. It has been suggested that this may be, in part, due to a lack of systems thinking during design, crash analysis, and countermeasure development. This paper presents a systems analysis of current rail level crossing systems in Australia that was undertaken specifically to identify safety-related issues in rail level crossing environments. Cognitive work analysis was used to analyze current rail level crossing systems based on data derived from a range of focused data collection activities. The analysis identified various issues potentially impacting behavior and safety across the different users of rail level crossings. In addition, potential areas for improvement through redesign were highlighted. An important implication of the study is that improvements in behavior and safety may be achievable through changes to the overall rail level crossing system (e.g. values, goals, norms, data systems) as opposed to changes to the physical rail level crossing infrastructure only. The implications for future rail level crossing design activities are discussed.

HSR Station Location Choice and its Local Land Use Impacts on Small Cities: A Case Study of Aveiro, Portugal

According to the Trans-European HSR network planning, in Portugal, Aveiro HSR station will be an important rail hub, of which the current planned location is distant from the city center without any existing public transport service to the urban area. Based on the current urban transport network and HSR planning, this paper examines two proposed HSR station location alternatives in and away from Aveiro city, with various travel times to the station by different travel modes. In this study, by consulting the evidences of land use impacts on Ciudad Real in Madrid-Seville HSR line of Spain as a benchmark model, we develop a land cover agent-based model to simulate the potential urban land use impacts on Aveiro city with various station location scenarios, according to the improvement of regional accessibility and population growth in each square land cell as individual decision-maker. The obtained results from this work reveals the positive impacts on land use development intensities of Aveiro city if the HSR station is located in the same place as the current rail station. Nonetheless, this paper also yields that the city of Aveiro hardly receive any benefits if the station is located away from the city center. A deceleration of land use development is also a possible consequence depending on the attractiveness of the new HSR station.

Thinking of Comprehensive Energy-Saving System Construction for Urban Rail Transit

The High Energy Consumption of the Current Urban Rail Transit Industry, High Efficiency Energy Saving Measures must be Taken. this Paper Entity from the Traction Energy Consumption, Building Structure and Operating Equipment Aspects of the Current Situation, Described the Energy Saving Strategies. Aiming at the Present Problems Existing in Energy Saving Practice, this Article Puts Forward the Comprehensive Energy Saving System which Contains Optimization Design in Planning Period, Low Resource Consumption in Construction Period, Energy Saving Work in Operation Period. above all, Implement Energy Saving Practice at Every Concrete Work of Reaching.

脉冲大电流电磁轨道发射装置特性

脉冲大电流电磁轨道发射装置特性

Applicative Suburban Line Pattern of Urban Rail Transit in China

By comparing the operation data of urban rail transit at home and abroad, this paper has analyzed the current urban rail transit system in China from the perspective of applicability and found that the structure is irrational and functional orientation of urban and suburban line is not clear. This paper has also attached great importance to the research on suburban railway, and analyzed the adaptability, planning and construction conditions and the development trend of suburban railway in China.

Eddy Current Rail Inspection Using AC Bridge Techniques.

AC bridge techniques commonly used for precision impedance measurements have been adapted to develop an eddy current sensor for rail defect detection. By using two detection coils instead of just one as in a conventional sensor, we can balance out the large baseline signals corresponding to a normal rail. We have significantly enhanced the detection sensitivity of the eddy current method by detecting and demodulating the differential signal of the two coils induced by rail defects, using a digital lock-in amplifier algorithm. We have also explored compensating for the lift-off effect of the eddy current sensor due to vibrations by using the summing signal of the detection coils to measure the lift-off distance. The dominant component of the summing signal is a constant resulting from direct coupling from the excitation coil, which can be experimentally determined. The remainder of the summing signal, which decreases as the lift-off distance increases, is induced by the secondary eddy current. This dependence on the lift-off distance is used to calibrate the differential signal, allowing for a more accurate characterization of the defects. Simulated experiments on a sample rail have been performed using a computer controlled X-Y moving table with the X-axis mimicking the train’s motion and the Y-axis mimicking the train’s vibrational bumping. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the new detection method.

Importance Analysis of Urban Rail Transit Network Station Based on Passenger

Current urban rail transit has become a major mode of transportation, and passenger is an important factor of urban rail transport, so this article is based on passenger and the degree of the road network structure, calculating the point intensity of stations of urban rail transit, and then reaching a station importance by integrating many point intensities in a survey cycle time, and getting the station importance of urban rail transit network through concrete examples.

Mapping Potential Metro Rail Ridership In Los Angeles County

Los Angeles County, as in many metropolitan areas, is coping with increasing street and highway traffic. Transit, and particularly rail, often is regarded as a strategy to help reduce urban traffic congestion especially in these economic downturn times, the rising price of gasoline and the acute awareness of global warming. The objectives of this paper are to identify the total potential riders who have access by walking to the Metro Rail, and the level of utilization, using the process of Trip Generation for data research. The potential ridership produced and attracted to each station is estimated using certain assumptions about the number of trips possibly generated by each person from residential and employment regions, based on the Origin-Destination (OD) flow patterns. Estimating the number of potential riders accessing the Metro Rail System involves a spatial analysis regarding the location of current Metro Rail stations serving populations in a reasonable access time by walking. Service Area Zones (SAZ) were mapped, representing the areas that the potential riders could be served by existing stations within a ten minute interval. The potential ridership was measured to be approximately one million, which represents a figure ten times larger than the present one. The results of the analysis were used to build an Atlas of Los Angeles County Ridership as the cartographic contribution in transportation and visual communication for transit forecasting and service planning of the system.

Market Impact Evaluation – the Way to Judge the Success of Completed Rail Research

The European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC) was set up in 2001 with the goal of helping to revitalise the European rail sector by making it more competitive, fostering increased innovation and guiding research efforts at the European level. The ERRAC Project Evaluation Working Group (EWG) determines the market impact of previous rail research to improve use of research funding and to ensure a strategic approach to the prioritisation of rail research. Individual projects are evaluated after they have been completed to ensure successful dissemination of project results in order to ensure that the results of previous rail research can be taken into account for future projects and avoid weak market uptake of results by learning the lessons of previous research.The EWG provides intelligence based on the project evaluations for input into future European Framework Programmes. ERRAC EWG has evaluated over 50 finished projects from the ERRAC database which has details of all Rail-related past and current rail research funded by the European Commission. A methodology has been developed to evaluate the market impact of projects and assess the contribution of evaluated projects to the ERRAC ROADMAPS and Strategic Rail Research Agenda (SRRA) goals. This information provides inputs to EC Project officers during the negotiation phase and during the course of the projects for project review.EWG has evaluated successfully finished rail research projects in order to analyse the success/failure factors related to actual market uptake and determine market uptake from an industry perspective in order to determine the return on research investment. This coordination activity helps to provide ideas for new European and national projects with a real potential for implementation and therefore a significant market uptake. The ERRAC EWG has developed the database to provide rapid access to information on results of rail research projects, deliverables etc., as well as lessons learnt and possible contributions to the attainment of the goals of the Rail Vision 2020 in coherence with SRRA and in the future RAIL VISION 2050.

Study on Risk Management of Rail Transit Construction in China

The construction of subway engineering, with its internal properties, was regarded as a high risk project. Because of the great scale, high construction speed and serious situations in current rail transit construction, it is urgent to do security risk management during the construction of it. By the analysis of security pyramid theory, Hain rules and variety-fault model, an important conclusion was got that most accidents can be fully avoided by the security risk management. Based on these theories and the conclusion, some crucial ideas on security risk management were established, which mainly includes: human is the keystone to the risk management; risk management must be run through the whole life of rail transit; risk management can not only depend on the insurance or the monitoring data; informationize has a significant effect on the risk management and should be promoted. In the end, some outstanding issues about risk management research were brought forward.

The Calculation of the Supporting Stress of Track Plate in Ballastless High-Speed Rail Structure

The slab track is a new sort of track structure, which has been widely used in high-speed rail and special line for passenger. However, the ballastless track structure design theory is still not perfect and can not meet the requirements of current high-speed rail and passenger line ballastless track. In this paper, composite beam method is used to calculate the deflection of the track plate and in this way the vertical supporting stress distribution of the track plate can be gotten which set a basis for the follow-up study of the dynamic stress distribution in the subgrade. Slab track plate’s bearing stress under moving load is analyzed through Matlab program. By calculation and analysis, it is found that the deflection of track plate and the rail in the double-point-supported finite beam model refers to the rate of spring coefficient of the fastener and the mortar.The supporting stress of the rail plate is inversely proportional to the supporting stress of the rail. The two boundary conditions of that model ,namely, setting the end of the model in the seams of the track plate or not , have little effect on the results. We can use the supporting stress of the track plates on state 1to get the distribution of the supporting stress in the track plate when bogies pass. Also, when the dynamic load magnification factor is 1.2, the track plate supporting stress of CRST I & CRST II-plate non-ballasted structure is around 40kPa.