Nederlandse Spoorwegen Research Articles

La Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) pendant la guerre

This article is based on the work of David Barnouw, Dirk Mulder, and Guus Veenendaal, De Nederlandse Spoorwegen in oorlogstijd 1939-1945. Rijden voor Vaderland en Vijand. Spoorwegstaking – Joden transporten – Herinnering (The Dutch Railway System During Wartime: 1939-1945. Driving for the Home Country and the Enemy. Railway Strike – Transportation of Jews – Memories). Published in 2019, the work describes the Dutch company’s acts of resistance (the railroad strike in September 1944) and collaboration as well as how this time period is perceived seventy-five years after the fact.Offering more than a simple historical and memorial analysis, the author highlights the path taken by the institution’s leaders, profoundly questioning the role of the Dutch railroads in the deportation of Jews and taking a step towards a moral (and financial) recognition of the victims.

Design of a Framework for Integrating Environmentally Sustainable Design Principles and Requirements in Train Modernization Projects

Environmental sustainability is an increasingly important subject in the railway sector. Literature has revealed that transportation companies target multiple sustainability-related improvement areas and follow different strategies to improve in these. For railway operators, train modernization provides key opportunities for technical, financial, and environmental improvements halfway through the lifecycle. Using design science research, a framework was developed that is aimed at integrating sustainable design principles and sustainability-focused requirements in train modernization. The framework was tested and demonstrated by means of application to the train modernization project of an intercity train at the Nederlandse Spoorwegen in the Netherlands. The results reveal three key design mechanisms for sustainable modernization frameworks. Firstly, sustainability should be considered as early as possible in the design process. Secondly, such frameworks require efforts to simplify the way sustainability principles and impacts are considered, being careful not to oversimplify. Thirdly, the use of sustainability-focused requirements and budgets facilitate the process of prioritizing design decisions in relation to the effects they have on various environmental impacts. The design process of the framework not only provides a better understanding of the challenge of integrating sustainability, it also presents a generalizable approach that can be adapted by other organizations in the transportation sector.

There is no spoon: applying virtual reality for maintenance training of rolling stock technicians

Introducing into operations new rolling stocks requires re-educating technicians and operators for being able to properly work on new and different assets. The training sessions are often performed under substantial time constraints and with a lack of resources. Re-training the technicians is a cost intensive process as it is for training new employees. The aim of the paper is to test and evaluate a virtual reality (VR) training solutions to decrease costs and to increase technicians' availability, safety during maintenance operations and education performance with the support of Netherlands Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen - NS). Firstly, the study explores the possible maintenance tasks analysing the benefits for VR implementations; secondly, it evaluates the attitude of technicians trained with the proposed VR approach. Finally, it discusses the results and provides general applicable suggestions for the use of VR in other training activities.

There is no spoon: applying virtual reality for maintenance training of rolling stock technicians

Introducing into operations new rolling stocks requires re-educating technicians and operators for being able to properly work on new and different assets. The training sessions are often performed under substantial time constraints and with a lack of resources. Re-training the technicians is a cost intensive process as it is for training new employees. The aim of the paper is to test and evaluate a virtual reality (VR) training solutions to decrease costs and to increase technicians' availability, safety during maintenance operations and education performance with the support of Netherlands Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen - NS). Firstly, the study explores the possible maintenance tasks analysing the benefits for VR implementations; secondly, it evaluates the attitude of technicians trained with the proposed VR approach. Finally, it discusses the results and provides general applicable suggestions for the use of VR in other training activities.

Reducing Passenger Delays by Rolling Stock Rescheduling

Delays are a major nuisance to railway passengers. The extent to which a delay propagates, and thus affects the passengers, is influenced by the assignment of rolling stock. We propose to reschedule the rolling stock in such a way that the passenger delay is minimized and such that objectives on passenger comfort and operational efficiency are taken into account. We refer to this problem as the passenger delay reduction problem. We propose two models for this problem, which are based on two dominant streams of literature for the traditional rolling stock rescheduling problem. The first model is an arc formulation of the problem, whereas the second model is a path formulation. We test the effectiveness of these models on instances from Netherlands Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen). The results show that the rescheduling of rolling stock can significantly decrease passenger delays in the system. Especially, allowing flexibility in the assignment of rolling stock at terminal stations turns out to be effective in reducing the delays. Moreover, we show that the arc formulation–based model performs best in finding high-quality solutions within the limited time that is available in the rescheduling phase.

5 years of Dutch eco-driving: Managing behavioural change

In the past years a new management approach has been developed to stimulate and monitor energy savings at the largest Dutch Train Operating Company (TOC), Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS). This so called “Energie Zuinig Rijden” (EZR), or eco-driving approach has led to yearly energy savings of up to 5% from 2010 to 2015.The EZR approach is a bottom-up approach which intends to bring about behavioural change. This approach starts by teaching the drivers an eco-driving method, then coaching driver managers into enhancing performance, and finally involving regional managers in setting, and upholding realistic energy saving targets. The EZR approach has proven to be successful in bringing about the necessary changes to run a more energy-efficient TOC.To support the management, an energy saving monitor has been developed, and implemented. This monitor measures the amount of energy savings per team of 30 drivers on a monthly basis. Thus giving feedback to the managers, and enabling them to take additional actions in order to enhance performance.

Beyond Condition-Monitoring: Comparing Diagnostic Events with Word Sequence Kernel for Train Delay Prediction

In the modern trains operated by the Dutch Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) in the Netherlands, there are on-board train management systems continuously monitoring the conditions of various train modules such as traction, climate, brake electronics and so forth. When an abnormal or particular situation occurs, the system will generate and store an event log on the local disk or on a remote disk using wireless data communications. These diagnostic events might give an indication of the train condition, and currently critical events are selected by business rules to give alarms on failure or malfunction to the control room. To give a better prediction on the trains status based on the condition monitoring data, sequences of diagnostic events instead of individual critical events are analyzed in this work. Moreover, train delays instead of train failures are used as targets for providing more insight on the degeneration behavior of trains. We have adopted the word sequence kernel for learning the similarity between all sequence pairs, where each diagnostic event is considered as a word. To include multi-length word interpretations, we propose to combine the word sequence kernels of various lengths, where length=1 means one word is matched, length=2 means two words are matched, and so on. A kernel machine or similarity-based model can be learned directly on this combined word sequence kernel. The experimental results demonstrate that combining word sequence kernels of different lengths can bring a richer description to similarity measurements and gives better prediction performance.

Distributed model predictive control for railway traffic management

Every day small delays occur in almost all railway networks. Such small delays are often called “disturbances” in literature. In order to deal with disturbances dispatchers reschedule and reroute trains, or break connections. We call this the railway management problem. In this paper we describe how the railway management problem can be solved using centralized model predictive control (MPC) and we propose several distributed model predictive control (DMPC) methods to solve the railway management problem for entire (national) railway networks. Furthermore, we propose an optimization method to determine a good partitioning of the network in an arbitrary number of sub-networks that is used for the DMPC methods. The DMPC methods are extensively tested in a case study using a model of the Dutch railway network and the trains of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen. From the case study it is clear that the DMPC methods can solve the railway traffic management problem, with the same reduction in delays, much faster than the centralized MPC method.

Case Study of Transit–Bicycle Integration

The Openbaar Vervoer-fiets (Public Transport–Bike) (OV-fiets) system was implemented to increase the number of train riders on the Dutch railway. The system offers commuters access to bicycles for travel from the train station to their final destination. The system has been very successful. The Nederlandse Spoorwegen (the main passenger railway operator in the Netherlands) found through internal analyses that train users were willing to trade a trip by vehicle for a train–OV-fiet trip and that there was an increase in bicycle–transit users. This study focused on the OV-fiets system as a case study and considered the implications of implementing a similar system in the United States.

Transparency and performance communication: a case study of Dutch Railways

PurposeIn an attempt to gain insight into the effects of transparent communication on critical performances, this paper aims to explore performance measures and communication of a large‐scale service organization, i.e. the Dutch Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen, (NS)).Design/methodology/approachSemi‐structured interviews with employees of NS and external stakeholders were analyzed to study which performances are measured by NS, why they are measured, and how they are communicated to the employees and stakeholders.FindingsAn ambiguous view on transparency was observed. Although transparency is advocated by most employees and stakeholders, this study revealed the complexity of performance communication of a service organization. In this case, NS used to fully disclose performances but emphasized positive performances. This transparent communication strategy seemed to backfire and yielded a counterbalanced societal response from customer organizations which resulted in a strained relationship.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are based on qualitative data of a limited number of interviews. Several types of actors were interviewed but not passengers of NS themselves.Practical implicationsFrom a communicative point of view, it might be wise to publish negative aspects as well as the positive ones to promote trust and corporate credibility. Building trust involves investing in positive experiences for customers and promotion of realistic expectations. To enhance trust, organizations must not only inform stakeholders and citizens about their performances but also invest in direct communication with their stakeholders.Originality/valueThis study explores performance communication of a service organization, and the ambivalent role of transparency of (internal and external) performance communication.

Cognition, tasks and planning: supporting the planning of shunting operations at the Netherlands Railways

One of the issues in planning research and planning practice are their apparent incompatibility. Various fields study aspects of planning, but too little is jointly used in practice. Starting from the human planner as a cognitive system, we elaborate the mixed initiative approach, in which we combine three fields: cognitive aspects of the task of the human planner, computer support, and algorithms. In this article, we argue that algorithms should be created for planners’ subtasks rather than for planning problems. We demonstrate this in a prototype that we developed for a shunting planning project we are involved in at the Netherlands Railways [Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS)]. In this project, a task analysis resulted in a planning support system with bottom up designed scheduling algorithms.

Decision Support Systems Support the Search for Win-Win Solutions in Railway Network Design

Railned is an independent organization that advises the Dutch government on investments in future railway infrastructure. It generates and evaluates infrastructural scenarios that stem from the government's objectives and those of the operators of the railway network, the Dutch railway company Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) being by far the largest. The government and the railway operators often have different objectives, which may conflict sometimes. The government finances and manages the infrastructure, and wants to meet certain social and environmental priorities, thereby not exceeding budget limits. The operators exploit the infrastructure and wish to have a dependable infrastructure that guarantees long-term profitability. Railned uses various decision support systems (DSS) to develop and analyze infrastructural scenarios that yield win-win solutions for both the Dutch government and the railway operators.

Short pitch corrugation on straight tracks—Practical experiences

One possibility to reduce rolling noise is to reduce roughness excitation. The basis of the paper is measurements of profile irregularities on a test section of the track between Baarn and Amersfoort in the networks of Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS). In one of two segments, periodic wear pattern (short pitch corrugation) appears with wavelength from 3.5 to 4 cm, whereas the second one is uncorrugated. The line is used only in one direction and mainly by passenger cars with medium speed. Starting from the measured track data, systematic calculations with the program of Müller, which is presented in a separate paper, have been undertaken. The aim is to estimate the roughness growth and to find hints about how the growth can be stopped or at least reduced. In Müller’s paper it is explained in detail that roughness growth is restricted to a wavelength range between 2 and 10 cm. Numerical results will be presented in order to clarify how different track components influence the RGG process. The model only takes into account wear as a long-term mechanism. It shall be discussed how the long-term behavior is influenced by plastic deformation, hardness variations, or different values of micro-roughness.

Simulating and analyzing railway interlockings in ExSpect

This study evaluates the ability of ExSpect, a toolkit for simulating and analyzing complex distributed systems using colored Petri nets, to analyze ISL specifications for railway interlockings.A railway interlocking--which is designed to guarantee the safety of train movements--is an extremely complex distributed system. The behavior of such a system - and thus its correctness - is hard to understand and even more difficult to analyze. Recognizing that verification of safety requirements in such a system would not be possible without a way to formally describe system behavior, the Dutch railway company, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, designed a set of formal languages, called the Interlocking Specification Language, also known as Euris.Engineers at NS envisioned that ISL would let them describe and simulate interlocking behavior, verify safety requirements, and optimize interlocking behavior. This in turn could lead to the creation of an infrastructure that would allow more flexible train schedules.However, although ISL is an important step toward a more formal approach to building and maintaining interlockings, it is not suitable for verifying safety requirements because it lacks a firm mathematical basis. The study described here, conducted by the Eindhoven University of Technology in cooperation with NS, is a first step toward the simulation and verification of ISL specifications that is grounded in mathematical theory.As part of the study, we translated a small part of an ISL specification into the graphical and functional language used by the ExSpect toolkit. ExSpect, which is short for Executable Specification tool, is a graphical specification and simulation package developed at the university and commercially available from Bakkenist Management Consultants. It is a general-purpose tool, based on the theory of Petri nets, that combines a graphical user interface for specifying and simulating many types of distributed systems with analysis tools for verifying the properties of such systems.The goals of the study were to investigate to what extent NS engineers could use ExSpect to improve simulation and verification in ISL and to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of ExSpect in an interesting real-world application. Many constructs in ISL map almost directly to ExSpect constructs. Thus, the study also laid the foundation for an ISL-to-ExSpect compiler.The study revealed that ExSpect has many advantages over ISL in simulation. It also revealed that we cannot yet verify any safety properties of an interlocking. First, it is not clear exactly what the safety requirements of an interlocking are, as they are described in ISL. Second, and more compelling, a railway interlocking specification is far too complex for formal verification with current technology.We did, however, learn some interesting things about ExSpect's abilities and gained much insight into possible extensions.

VPT, A New Systems Architecture ForPlanning And Control Of Train Traffic In TheNetherlands

In order to fulfil the expected increase in train traffic demand, Nederlandse Spoorwegen is making considerable investments in both expansion of infra-structure and in development of computer systems for better command of the production process. These systems encompass all processes involved with train traffic, and cover all phases, from planning to supervision. To enable a controlled and timely introduction of all systems involved, an overall architecture was developed. This paper describes the systems architecture and its parts.