Current Railway Research Articles

Analyze China High-Speed Railway Ticket for Spring Transportation from the Perspective of Microeconomics

In recent ten years, the rapid development of China high-speed railway is called "China miracle", and it not only provides great convenience for people's daily life trip, but also greatly promotes the economic development. However, the annual spring transportation in the special period is still a great challenge to high-speed railway transportation, and this paper analyzes the high-speed railway ticket for spring transportation from the perspective of microeconomics, and then thinks for the solution.This paper specifically analyzes the problem that demand exceeds supply for high-speed railway ticket by using the theories of the demand elasticity of supply and demand and the influence of price on supply and demand, monopoly markets. In addition, opportunity cost, incomplete information and other economic principles are used to think about the theoretical reasons for the difficulty of buying tickets during the spring transportation. I have given my understanding for the two problems owned by China spring transportation, and the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions. For example, speed up the development of substitutes and carry out the mechanism of price fluctuation; In the ticket refunding mechanism, this paper boldly conceives the method to relieve the pressure through a reasonable and scientific ticket refunding mechanism. Finally, this paper starts from the source and find the key point to solve the problem of spring transportation in China by breaking the urban-rural dual structure.Hereafter the final conclusion was drawn: Although there are some problems to cope with the spring transport for the current China high-speed railway, it is believed that in the near future, the difficulty of buying a ticket in spring transportation will no longer hinder the homecoming of wanderers.

토지피복지도를 활용한 철도개발지의 민감도 분석

최근 한반도 생태축의 근간을 이루는 백두대간의 중심에 위치한 추풍령 생태축 연결 복원사업이 추진되고 있으며, 이 지역은 일제 강점기에 경부선 철도건설과 함께 산업화 과정에서 도로와 철도 건설 등에 의해 야생동물의 이동이 단절되어 로드킬의 주요 원인이 되어 온 것으로 지적되었다. 그러나 친환경적 교통수단인 철도에 대한 투자 비중이 증가하는 추세를 보이고 있으며, 현재 기존 선로의 고속화를 위한 단선철도의 복선전철화 및 선형개량 사업 등 전국 철도망이 지속적으로 확대되고 있다. 이에 따라 본 연구는 급증하는 철도노선 연장에 따른 국토공간의 생태적 취약성을 평가하는 주요 평가기준으로 토지이용을 검토할 것을 제안하였고, 환경부에서 제공하는 토지피복지도를 활용하여 철도노선과 중첩분석을 수행하였다. 그 결과 논, 밭, 활엽수림, 나지, 내륙수 등 5개 항목에 민감도가 높은 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 항목들에는 민감도에 따른 가중치 설정이 필요한 것으로 생각되며 이를 바탕으로 구체적인 평가 기준을 마련할 필요가 있다. Recently, the 'Ecological Network Restoration Project at Chupungnyeong' has been placed; this project is located at the center of the Baekdu mountain spine, the core of the ecological network of the Korean Peninsula. In the process of industrialization since the early 1900s, this area has been under railroad and road construction; as such, wildlife movements have been interrupted and many cases of road-kill have been found. The investment in railroads has increased because railroads are an environmentally sound means of transportation. Single track railways have been converted to double track electric railways and track reforming projects are underway in order to speed up the current railway system. This study suggests to take land use as a standard for assessing the ecological weaknesses of the domestic geo-spaces that are to be affected by rapid extension of railway lines. The land cover map issued by the Ministry of Environment was overlapped with the Korean Railway Line Map for analysis. The results showed that five items were high in sensitivity: paddy fields, fields, deciduous forests, bare land, and inland waters. It seems to be necessary to set weights for highly sensitive land use types; also, specific evaluation criteria need to be reestablished.

Re-analyse the Early Stage American Railway Investment System from the Land Use and Privatization Double-guided Perspective: the Drawbacks and warnings

Abstract The Chinese railway infrastructure investment has come to a new developing phase with the feature of privatization and land double-oriented. Most domestic literatures recommend the experiences of the “private investment & land grant” model of American railway investment system. However, the growth trajectory of private capital and land system in china are considerably different from that of the United States. The paper reveals the role of the various stakeholders in the railway development, re-analyzing the drawbacks of American railroads development model and proposing the warnings to policy options of the current and future Chinese Railway development.

Risks of Climate Change with Respect to the Singapore-Malaysia High Speed Rail System

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and many of the observed changes are unprecedented over the past five decades. Globally, the atmosphere and the ocean are becoming increasingly warmer, the amount of ice on the earth is decreasing over the oceans, and the sea level has risen. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the average increase in global temperature (combined land and surface) between the 1850–1900 period and the 2003–2012 period was 0.78 °C (0.72 to 0.85). But should we prepare for such a relatively small change? The importance is not the means of the warming but the considerable likelihood of climate change that could trigger extreme natural hazards. The impact and the risk of climate change associated with railway infrastructure have not been fully addressed in the literature due to the differences in local environmental parameters. On the other hand, the current railway network in Malaysia, over the last decade, has been significantly affected by severe weather conditions such as rainfall, lightning, wind and very high temperatures. Our research findings based on a critical literature review and expert interviews point out the extremes that can lead to asset system failure, degraded operation and ultimately, delays in train services. During flooding, the embankment of the track can be swept away and bridge can be demolished, while during drought, the embankment of the track can suffer from soil desiccation and embankment deterioration; high temperature increases the risk of track buckling and high winds can result in vegetation or foreign object incursion onto the infrastructure as well as exert an additional quasi-static burden. This review is of significant importance for planning and design of the newly proposed high speed rail link between Malaysia and Singapore.

Are railways really that bad? An evaluation of rail systems performance in Europe with a focus on passenger rail

With a large number of railway development projects in Europe and worldwide, which once completed will be serving rail passengers of the future, this paper aims to take a step back and evaluate current railway systems performance. The objectives are to compare statistical data on various passenger-related parameters of the railway system in a number of selected European countries and draw conclusions on the level of their performance when compared to the European average.Analyses of publically available statistical data, extracted from the Eurostat service at a European level will allow for a comparison of various indicators which influence the performance of the railway systems from an infrastructure and operational perspectives. The analyses will also allow identifying key performance indicators for the accurate assessment of the rail systems.The paper will highlight case studies for various parameters which are important to stakeholders of the railways, including infrastructure managers, rail operators, policy makers and the end users. This knowledge will be to the benefit of today’s railway industry as well as the rail systems of the future, as it will show trends drew upon existing data which might continue in the future.

Thermal buckling and post-buckling behaviour of continuous welded rail track

ABSTRACTBecause thermal expansions are constrained within continuous welded rail track, the track can buckle, and does so mainly in the horizontal plane. In this paper, a parametric finite element model of railway track is presented, and its sensitivity to the variations of the main parameters that characterise the scenario has been investigated and discussed. Comparison with existing literature shows good agreement. It is found that curved tracks suffer from thermal buckling more than tangent tracks do. To simulate a track misalignment defect, a new methodology has been utilised that does not introduce, as is usual, geometrical discontinuities near the same defect, because it takes into account – in a natural way – the bending stiffness of the whole railway track in the horizontal plane. To contribute to a better understanding of the safe utilisation of raw experimental data obtained from in situ tests, a deep analysis of the effects on the thermal track buckling response produced by each parameter characterising the sleeper–ballast lateral resistance curve is presented and discussed. It is found that for current ballasted railway tracks, the minimum buckling temperature depends only on the limit lateral resistance, whereas a high value of the initial stiffness can lead to overestimation of the maximum buckling temperature, also taking into account the ‘natural’ decrease in the maximum buckling temperature due to an increase in the railway-traffic-induced defect amplitude.

Mix design of concrete for prestressed concrete sleepers using blast furnace slag and steel fibers

The application of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and steel fibers in prestressed concrete railway sleepers was investigated in this study. The use of GGBFS was considered as an eco-friendly material aimed at reducing CO2 emissions and energy consumption as well as to enhance the durability performance of railway sleepers. Steel fibers improves the durability and structural performance in terms of crack control and reduction of spalling and can replace shear reinforcement. The mix proportions of the concrete incorporating GGBFS (56% GGBFS) and GGBFS with steel fibers (56% GGBFS and 0.75% steel fibers) were determined through a series laboratory tests and a life cycle assessment. These mixes satisfied the requirements of the Korean Railway Standard and resulted in improved flexural capacity as well as less CO2 emissions compared with current railway sleepers. Using these mixes, a total of ninety prestressed concrete sleepers were produced in a factory under the same manufacturing process as current railway sleepers, and their mechanical properties as well as durability performance were evaluated. The mix with partial replacement of Type III Portland cement by GGBFS showed an improved resistance to chloride ion penetration and freeze-thaw cycles compared with the concrete used for current railway sleepers. However, these mixes were more vulnerable to carbonation. The mix with GGBFS and steel fibers (mix BSF) showed a slightly better durability performance than the mix with GGBFS only (mix BS), including better carbonation and freeze-thaw resistances. The mix BSF showed decreased chloride ion penetration depth than mix BS but showed a slightly higher chloride ion diffusion coefficient.

Optimisation of a railway sanding system for optimal grain entrainment into the wheel–rail contact

To combat adhesion loss, sand is fired into the wheel–rail contact via a hose using compressed air typically from a storage hopper mounted to the under frame of the train. Many passenger trains in the UK are fitted with stepped braking controllers which range from 1 to 3 with a fourth step being ‘emergency braking’.1 Sand is fired automatically if wheel slip is detected from brake step level 2 upwards.2 Sand is automatically fired when the emergency brakes are applied irrespective of whether low adhesion/wheel slip has been detected.2 For adhesion loss in traction, sand can be applied at the driver’s discretion. Current railway standards2 govern the maximum permissible sand flow rate to protect against wheel/rail isolation of track circuits, but do not address the hose position. This results in a range of hose set-ups across different train types, some of which may not be effective at delivering sand. The work here was carried out using a full-scale laboratory rail–wheel test machine to find the position for the hose and sand flow rates that give optimum sand entrainment to the contact. It was found that ideally the hose should be aimed at the rail or nip and be as close to that contact as safely possible. The use of a 20 mm bore nozzle on the end of a 25 mm bore hose increased sand passing through the contact by up to 70% relative to widely used 25 mm bore hoses without a nozzle. Reduction in sand flow rate below the 2 kg/min threshold significantly reduced the amount of sand entering the contact. It was also shown that relatively small movements in the hose/nozzle from its ideal position and cross winds significantly reduced sand entrainment.

Development of a Smart Framework Based on Knowledge to Support Infrastructure Maintenance Decisions in Railway Corridors

In a context of wide use of transport, it is necessary to increase the efficiency of different transport modes as well as their interaction. To that effect, railway transport will play an important role in the future by increasing its capacity and ensuring a sustainable, efficient and safe service. In that sense, it is essential to improve the interoperability and safety of national networks in order to promote a single European Rail Market. On the other hand, the current railways systems need an efficient maintenance in order to extend their lifetime.Within this framework, the main objective of the OPTIRAIL project has been the development a set of new tools to support smart maintenance decision making. These tools are based on Fuzzy and Computational Intelligence techniques. The tools are integrated in a framework built out of railway infrastructure maintenance data and knowledge expertise across European railway corridors. The framework has been evaluated through two case studies. The use of the system for the stakeholders will enable better cross-border coordination for maintenance decision making. Furthermore, some non-participant railway administrators have shown their interest and commitment to the project and its proposal.

Improvement of the regenerating energy accounting system on the direct current railways

Purpose. Monitoring of current state of quantitative indices of regenerative energy in the suburban movement, the analysis of the factors influencing its volumes and improvement the principles of the train regenerative energy accounting on the basis of it. Relevance. Development of effective measures of increase the regeneration efficiency of the electric power in system of electric traction demands comprehensive completeness of information on quantitative indices of regeneration energy volumes at all possible levels of its analysis, in particular on the corresponding sections of RS movement that will allow to establish the influence on the level of regeneration of various factors, such as parameters of traction power supply and the organization of train service. As the existing system of the regenerative energy accounting does not allow to consider the specified factors, development of the principles for increasing the efficiency of the analysis of volumes of return energy to a contact line during regenerative braking on DC rolling stock is the actual direction of researches. Collective monitoring of regeneration energy volumes by specialists of locomotive service, power supply and traffic operating departments will be essentially new approach to definition of real factors and taking effective decisions for increasing of using of regenerative energy. Scientific novelty. It’s offered to consider the influence on quantitative indices of regenerative energy the parameters of traction power supply and the organization (sizes) of traffic service on sections. Practical importance. Increasing the efficiency of the regeneration energy accounting is an important element in drawing up the balance of energy for electric traction system, development of the effective methods for improvement of the conditions of regeneration in it and in estimation of its power indicators in general.

Optimisation models for expanding a railway's theoretical capacity

Changing the topology of a railway network can greatly affect its capacity. Railway networks however can be altered in a multitude of different ways. As each way has significant immediate and long term financial ramifications, it is a difficult task to decide how and where to expand the network. In response some railway capacity expansion models (RCEM) have been developed to help capacity planning activities, and to remove physical bottlenecks in the current railway system. The exact purpose of these models is to decide given a fixed budget, where track duplications and track sub divisions should be made, in order to increase theoretical capacity most. These models are high level and strategic, and this is why increases to the theoretical capacity is concentrated upon. The optimisation models have been applied to a case study to demonstrate their application and their worth. The case study evidently shows how automated approaches of this nature could be a formidable alternative to current manual planning techniques and simulation. If the exact effect of track duplications and sub-divisions can be sufficiently approximated, this approach will be very applicable.

Experimental validation of inspection intervals for railway axles accompanying the engineering process

In the paper an example of successful cooperation between an operator, a vehicle manufacturer, a wheelset supplier and a research institute is presented demonstrating the current state of a design procedure which aims at meeting wheelset specification requirements recently adopted by the Deutsche Bahn (DB). Different from the conventional praxis, these requirements incorporate the fracture mechanics approach for determining inspection intervals of railway axles. The procedure includes the wheelset dimensioning based on current railway standards, fracture mechanics considerations to assess subcritical crack propagation starting from a crack size just below the detection limit, and crack propagation tests on full-scale axles under load spectrum representative of in-service conditions. The paper describes different steps of the procedure, while mainly focusing on fracture mechanics – both computational and experimental – issues.

Risk Assessment on Operating Tunnels of High-Speed Railway in Perilous and Mountainous Area

The project named "the rescue system and key technology of high-speed railway in perilous mountains" pri- marily focuses on current railway constructions and operations in China. To state the relationship between risk events and risk factors, we classified the risk sources of operating tunnels of high-speed railway in perilous and mountainous area and established a hierarchical assessment system by using the example of high-speed railway from Guangzhou to Guiyang. According to the risk acceptance criteria and risk level standard, we analyzed the risks of operating tunnels qualitatively and quantitatively by using AHP-Fuzzy method. As a result, the key risks were characterized and proposals were listed. Our study provides a framework for the risk analysis and management of operating tunnels of high-speed railway in peril- ous and mountainous area.

궤도거동에 대한 H형 침목의 영향

The demand for improved rail transportation safety is growing due to the increased speeds of current railways. In addition, freight trains with heavier axle loads are required to run on conventional railways. In order to meet these requirements, increased rail weights and the application of a CWR system have been introduced on conventional railways. The H type sleeper, which has higher lateral resistance than the existing mono sleepers, has been recently developed to increase track stiffness and reduce track irregularities. In this paper, the effects of a H-type sleeper on track behavior were investigated by 3-Dimensional F.E. analysis.

철도 무선통신망 연동 방안 연구

The current railway wireless network uses various communication scheme depending on the section of railway. Therefore, in the train, it is required a specific communication device for the corresponding communication scheme to communicate and exchange data with the control center. To enhance data rate and support various services, LTE-R scheme has been developed for the next generation railway communications. To use both the existing communication and LTE-R schemes, it is required an integration method for encompassing all communication schemes. In this paper, we overview existing railway communications and LTE-R scheme. Then, we develop a network integration method which can be applied by using one terminal in the train. In addition, implementation issues for the integration are also considered.

Risk Assessment on Operating Tunnels of High-speed Railway in Perilous and Mountainous Area

The project named rescue system and key technology of high-speed railway in perilous mountains pri- marily focuses on current railway constructions and operations in China. To state the relationship between risk events and risk factors, we classified the risk sources of operating tunnels of high-speed railway in perilous and mountainous area and established a hierarchical assessment system by using the example of high-speed railway from Guangzhou to Guiyang. According to the risk acceptance criteria and risk level standard, we analyzed the risks of operating tunnels qualitatively and quantitatively by using AHP-Fuzzy method. As a result, the key risks were characterized and proposals were listed. Our study provides a framework for the risk analysis and management of operating tunnels of high-speed railway in peril- ous and mountainous area.

Estimating stray current interference from DC traction lines on buried pipelines by means of a Monte Carlo algorithm

The paper presents a non-deterministic approach to the study of stray current effects generated by direct current railway or tramway lines on buried pipelines which are located in the nearby area. The potential shift induced (via conductive coupling) on the latter ones by the stray current dispersed in the soil is evaluated by means of a suitable equivalent circuit combined with a Monte Carlo procedure. The algorithm proposed has to be intended as a tool for the estimation of the corrosion risk for a pipeline (or, more in general, for long buried metallic structures) due to the stray current generated by electrified railway/tramway lines. Different from the existing models present in literature, which are based on a deterministic approach, a method based on the random and statistical aspects of stray current, which are captured by Monte Carlo approach, is proposed. This is the novelty of the method.

Railway passenger transport spatial contacts and their structure Tupu of central cities in China

On the basis of current interactive connection of railway passenger transport between 286 central cities in China and the analysis of different passenger train types--local, rapid, express, multiple units and high-speed railway, the paper intends to comprehensively deconstruct the spatial pattern of national railway passenger transport and its structure characteristics by using GIS methods based on O-D contact network, whose goal is to reveal the national railway passenger spatial contacts, distribution regularity and regional difference more clearly and profoundly, as well as new technical ideas and more data for transportation spatial connect research by means of making use of central cities' interactive connection data of "city-train-city" and overcoming the problem that traditional railway connection only has the information between origination and destination and lacks that of the intermediate stations. The results show that the spatial framework of national railway passenger transport between central cities presents an eastward tilted"kai"font shape, which mainly consists of two vertical train lines: Beijing-Shanghai to Shanghai-Shenzhen, Beijing-Guangzhou to Beijing-Harbin, and two horizontal lines: Lanzhou-Lianyungang to Lanzhou-Urumqi and Shanghai-Kunming. The linkage of national railway passenger transport between central cities is characterized by Rank-Size distribution, which belongs to the most optimal centralized distribution in natural state. The connection of national railway passenger transport between central cities generally relies on important transport axis and neighbor core cities. This study clearly demonstrates the major contact directions and corresponding intensities between inter and outer railway transports in a given subdivision types of train number. The study shows that the rapid train dominates the current railway passenger transport in China. The rapid development of the multiple units and high-speed railway technology has greatly changed the structure of Chinese railway passenger transport. The contacts of multiple units and high-speed railways concentrate in three economic regions of eastern China. However, there is a tighter linkage between Beijing and Shanghai, as well as Beijing and Guangzhou compared with that between Shanghai and Guangzhou(Shenzhen). A relative weak contact between Shanghai and Guangzhou(Shenzhen) is attributed to the infrastructure of high-speed railway facilities lagging behind.

Development of a simulation model for dynamic derailment analysis of high-speed trains

The running safety of high-speed trains has become a major concern of the current railway research with the rapid development of high-speed railways around the world. The basic safety requirement is to prevent the derailment. The root causes of the dynamic derailment of high-speed trains operating in severe environments are not easy to identify using the field tests or laboratory experiments. Numerical simulation using an advanced train-track interaction model is a highly efficient and low-cost approach to investigate the dynamic derailment behavior and mechanism of high-speed trains. This paper presents a three-dimensional dynamic model of a high-speed train coupled with a ballast track for dynamic derailment analysis. The model considers a train composed of multiple vehicles and the nonlinear inter-vehicle connections. The ballast track model consists of rails, fastenings, sleepers, ballasts, and roadbed, which are modeled by Euler beams, nonlinear spring-damper elements, equivalent ballast bodies, and continuous viscoelastic elements, in which the modal superposition method was used to reduce the order of the partial differential equations of Euler beams. The commonly used derailment safety assessment criteria around the world are embedded in the simulation model. The train-track model was then used to investigate the dynamic derailment responses of a high-speed train passing over a buckled track, in which the derailment mechanism and train running posture during the dynamic derailment process were analyzed in detail. The effects of train and track modelling on dynamic derailment analysis were also discussed. The numerical results indicate that the train and track modelling options have a significant effect on the dynamic derailment analysis. The inter-vehicle impacts and the track flexibility and nonlinearity should be considered in the dynamic derailment simulations.

철도교량형식의 경간에 따른 효율성 비교연구

일반철도 및 고속철도를 포함한 철도교량의 상부구조로 현재 우리나라에서 주로 사용되고 있는 교량형식은 크게 박스 거더교와 I형 거더교로 구분된다. 박스 거더교는 동적 거동에 대한 안전성이 우수하기 때문에 주로 고속철도 교량으로 많이 사용된다. I형 거더교는 일반철도 교량으로 주로 사용되며, 일반 PSC 거더교 형태와 철골철근콘크리트로 합성화된 구조인 프리플렉스 거더교의 형태로 크게 구분되고 또한 새로운 형식도 지속적으로 개발되고 있는 추세에 있다. 본 연구에서는 현행 철도교설계기준에 의거하여 각 형식별로 경간장에 따라 거더 설계를 실시하여 적절한 형고를 분석하여 경간장에 따른 구조적 및 경제적 효율성을 비교분석하였다. 비교분석을 수행한 결과, 구조적 효율성의 측면에서는 프리플렉스 거더교 형태의 교량이 경간장에 따른 형고가 가장 낮은 것으로 나타났으며, 경제적 효율성의 측면에서는 일반 PSC 거더교 형태의 교량이 가장 효과적인 것으로 평가되었다. The superstructure type of the railway bridge in our country, is mainly classified into the box girder and the I-type girder. The box girder is widely used in the high speed railway bridge because of the safety due to dynamic behavior. The I-type girder is used in the conventional railway bridge, and is also divided into the general type and the composite type, and the newly modified types have been developed. According to the current railway bridge design code, the girder design by the span length in various railway bridge types are performed in this study. The suitable girder height by the span length are analyzed, and the comparative analysis of the structural efficiency and the economical efficiency is carried out. From this study, the composite type girder is appeared the good result in respect of the structural efficiency. However, in the economical aspect, the general I-type girder is required less cost than the other types.