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The article presents comments of the author on the transport White Paper. The British Deputy Prime Minister's proposals, as revealed in the July 1998 White Paper, fall far short of the rhetoric one recalls from the 1997 general election campaign, or even of the promises that followed it. The railways are not to be renationalized; the buses are not to be re-regulated and area-wide local authority franchising is not even mentioned. All the same, the politicians' urge to meddle runs throughout the document and the liberty of entrepreneurs to seek out and satisfy demand is still to be overseen by those whom scholar Deepak Lal calls the Platonic guardians. The search for a definitive meaning of the word integration is abandoned in favor of a list of four possible interpretations. There is to be a new Commission for Integrated Transport and there are to be local transport plans will be the key to the delivery of integrated transport locally. So the Commission and the local authorities will have to work out the meaning of the word for themselves. The White Paper is being followed by a collection of daughter papers which might, just possibly, throw more light on the question. A policy based upon an indeterminate concept such as this can hardly be expected to make things better for everyone.

Railways played a crucial role in building the modern South African nation during the early decades of the Twentieth Century. After 1910, the SAR&H became not only the white state's primary means of building the economic independence of the newly-formed Union, but also its sole agency for promoting tourism, settlement and investment. The many thousands of images of the South African landscape it commissioned and distributed at home and abroad in various formats and contexts were a key to this promotion. The synergistic relationship that developed between this photographic array and the transformation of the lived space by the SAR&H's lines and services helped construct an imaginary geography of emergent nationhood. This paper explores how this joint social spatialisation by travel and landscape representation underscored the discourse of a modern, non-partisan white national identity during these politically-formative years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper demonstrates the possibilities of a scientometric approach using CiteSpace II software analysis of the field of railway dynamics with detection of research front, main clusters of cross-cited papers, their evolution and pivotal points (see terms in Sections 2.1 and 2.2). The initial database contained 5126 Web Of Science records published between 1975 and 2019 (45 years). The linguistic analysis determined the evolution of burst terms and grouped the papers in 14 clusters that corresponded with the view of the specialists in the field. 'Railway vehicle', 'Curved track' (hunting stability and derailment risk), 'Unconventional railway truck', 'Railway turnout (crossing)' and 'Polygonal wear' clusters were analysed in more detail with a determination of top-cited papers in each cluster and papers that determined connections between clusters (pivotal papers). Two pivotal papers were verified with their authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2004, the Government published a white paper on‘The Future of Rail’, which outlined its planned third attempt to reform the railways. This article reviews the new blueprint for rail, in the context of the performance of the industry and its regulatory bodies. The changes proposed are analysed in terms of their likely effects on the infrastructure authority and the train companies. The author concludes that there are major problems with the white paper as key details are omitted, and the proposed changes are heavily reliant on private companies which have performed poorly. The Government has missed the opportunity to renationalize the infrastructure authority, a move which would reduce borrowing costs and bring direct control over infrastructure costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the transformations of informal transportation practices in Siberia as an example of the process of social embedding of infrastructure in remote regions. Research about informal transportation is predominantly based on studies of minibuses, motorcycles, rikshaws and other small, low-performance vehicles. Meanwhile, the railroad often best exemplifies formalization, control, and surveillance, the characteristics opposite to informal practices. On the basis of information gathered from local and regional archives and semi-formal interviews with railroad workers, their families, and BAM builders (2016–2020), this paper traces the roots of embeddedness in specific norms and expectations that formed during construction of the railroad and persisted during its operation. Informal transportation became the norm and a resource for coping with a lack of infrastructure. Recent reforms have changed the railroad from a public system to a private, profit-seeking, dis-embedded enterprise. This process affects local communities' access to the railroad. Workers' trains, or okurki, are a last refuge for the retention of local mobility mostly in an informal way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rack railway is a rail transportation that utilizes the gear-rack engagement to supply the traction forces on large-slope lines, primarily employed in mountainous regions where the conventional trains cannot operate due to the wheel-rail adhesion limitations. However, there is limited research on this system dynamics and further analysis is required to understand the interaction mechanism between the rack vehicle and track. Based on the typical vehicle-track coupled dynamics theory, the rack vehicle-track spatially coupled dynamics model is developed in this paper to evaluate the dynamic behaviours of the rack vehicle and the track system running on large-slope line with a detailed modeling of the longitudinal motion for the rack and sleeper, where the time-varying gear-rack mesh stiffness and the rail geometrical irregularity are incorporated. The excellent agreement observed between simulated and field-test results serves as strong validation for developed dynamics model. The results demonstrate that the vibration responses of the wheelset and the rack are dominated by the gear-rack mesh excitations. It should be noticed that the wheel loads are reduced by the presence of the gear-rack engagement. Furthermore, the vibration of the sleeper can explicitly reflect the gear-rack mesh characteristics through the transfer of the rack fastener. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents several abstracts of papers submitted at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers held on March 30–April 2, 1959 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "The Influence of Pleistocene Climates Upon the Morphology of Cuesta Scarps on the Colorado Plateau," by Frank O. Anhert; "The Largest Railway Net in Continental Southeast Asia," by Thomas Frank Burton; "Statistical Tests of Value in Grouping Geographic Phenomena," by Brian J. L. Berry; "Industrial Developments for Rural Areas?," by Lloyd D. Black.

Transportation enterprises have started to pay more attention to the vast amount of historical operational data. In this paper, real route information is extracted from the freight car trajectory data and a satisfied route is proposed based on this information. The satisfied route not only can reduce the travel cost but also conform to the actual transportation situation. A solution framework driven by trajectory data is developed to obtain the satisfied route. A case study associated with the Chinese railway is used to verify the model and the solution framework proposed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical infrastructure networks, such as transport and power networks, are essential for the functioning of a society and economy. The rising transport demand increases the congestion in railway networks and thus they become more interdependent and more complex to operate. Also, an increasing number of disruptions due to system failures as well as climate changes can be expected in the future. As a consequence, many trains are cancelled and excessively delayed, and thus, many passengers are not reaching their destinations which compromises customers need for mobility. Currently, there is a rising need to quantify impacts of disruptions and the evolution of system performance. This review paper aims to set-up a field-specific definition of resilience in railway transport and gives a comprehensive, up-to-date review of railway resilience papers. The focus is on quantitative approaches. The review analyses peer-reviewed papers in Web of Science and Scopus from January 2008 to August 2019. The results show a steady increase of the number of published papers in recent years. The review classifies resilience metrics and approaches. It has been recognised that system-based metrics tend to better capture effects on transport services and transport demand. Also, mathematical optimization shows a great potential to assess and improve resilience of railway systems. Alternatively, data-driven approaches could be potentially used for detailed ex-post analysis of past disruptions. Finally, several rising future scientific topics are identified, spanning from learning from historical data, to considering interdependent critical systems and community resilience. Practitioners can also benefit from the review to understand a common terminology, recognise possible applications for assessing and designing resilient railway transport systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Railway overhead contact lines are very low-damped structures with a high modal density in the low-frequency region. This has a significant impact on the interaction with the pantograph, especially in the high-speed case and in multiple pantographs operations. This paper studies the optimal spatial damping distribution in overhead contact lines obtained by introducing localised damping connections, resulting in a non-proportional damping distribution. To this end, the simulation software Cateway is presented and adopted in conjunction with evolutionary multi-objective optimisers to seek for the most efficient spatial damping distribution. The study is conducted on a high-speed reference model considering two different train speeds. The final goal of this optimisation is to obtain useful hints about the most and least sensitive regions to damping modifications. A dedicated study on the locus of the poles of the system is also proposed to corroborate the findings of the analysis. Results show that significant improvements on the current collection quality can be achieved by carefully designing the spatial damping distribution, especially for the rear (trailing) pantograph. On the other hand, wrong design choices can lead to a degradation of the contact forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a methodology aimed at identifying the main factors affecting the rail sector in the new normal scenario, referring to the post-pandemic era, where the transportation system has experienced significant changes. Indeed, a survey was designed, and a questionnaire was submitted to a sample of employees of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (Italian State Railway company). Then, a ranking of these factors was identified through the estimation of a Structural Equation Model (SEM). Results showed that the areas of Energy and Environment, Lifestyle, and Economy will positively affect the future of rail in the new normal scenario. This study offers insights into the dynamics of the rail sector's adaptation to post-pandemic conditions. By highlighting the factors that play a crucial role in shaping the future of rail transportation, this research suggests innovative strategies and policy initiatives to foster sustainable growth and resilience in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The draft gear is a key component in a railway train system. The stochastic feature of dry friction in the draft gear has been observed by many researchers, however, characterisation studies in this regard have not been published. This paper used a state-of-the-art laboratory testing rig to measured draft gear forces and deflection responses to sinusoidal force inputs. Measured data were then inversed into values for Coefficient of Friction (CoF). The inverse method was developed based on a friction-wedge-spring draft gear model. The results show that CoF values have a range from 0.22 to 0.47; however, the majority of values are located above 0.34. Normal distribution fitting of the CoF values show that they have a mean of 0.42 and a deviation of 0.02. Weibull distribution fitting shows that they have a scale parameter of 0.43 and a shape parameter of 22.48. The normal distribution stochastic friction was used to model a friction draft gear. A simulation was conducted, and the results show that simulations using the stochastic model can better match the measured data than using conventional deterministic friction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A digital twin is aimed to be a virtual model designed to accurately replicate a physical system in the digital world. This is why digital twins have become quite popular in recent years in both rail and road domain applications, and some researchers and engineers have started considering the term as a buzz word that attracts increased interest in their research. In some cases, this leads to misunderstandings regarding the digital twin concept, especially if the discussion relates to digital twins built on physics-based models. This paper's detailed review has been performed to address this issue considering the application of vehicle system dynamics theories as a basis for development of digital twins and the implementation process in digital twin studies. The results show that most works are focusing on digital twin developments at the 'top level of the pyramid' and more comprehensive research and investigation studies are needed in terms of the application of vehicle system dynamics in design and construction of digital twins. This paper adopts and summarises the possible directions for the development of a future framework in terms of disciplines relevant to vehicle system dynamics and presents a forecasting roadmap on future development strategies of digital twins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bridge failures inevitably cause severe social consequences in terms of the economic losses or even human fatalities. Scour is one of the leading causes for bridge failures. Due to its complexity and multidisciplinary nature, the mechanism of scour has not been completely understood yet. Inspired by the rapid development of Machine Learning (ML) techniques, this paper aims to construct a novel data-driven extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) algorithm based model to predict the scour risk around bridge piers. Data used in the present study is provided by the French National Railway Company (SNCF). The performance of XGBoost-based model is compared with three commonly used algorithms: support vector machine, random forest and multilayer perceptron. Results show that the XGBoost classifier achieves high accuracy (0.959/0.938), precision (0.970/0.961), recall (0.974/0.956) and low false positive rate (0.085/0.114) for training and test set respectively. Moreover, the classifier obtains an area under the ROC curve (AUC) score equal to 0.974 for test set (a perfect classifier has an AUC equal to 1). This paper presents a cutting-edge application of XGBoost algorithm in the maintenance of railway bridges. The proposed methodology may allow engineers to determine the scour risk of bridge piers in an accurate and rapid way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transportation planning of Indian Railways has become increasingly complex due to the growing population and increasing demand for mobility. To develop an efficient and effective lastmile transportation system, it is important to identify the extent of the influence zone of railway stations. This can guide policy decisions and infrastructure development. This research paper focuses on mapping the influence zones of 40 railway stations across the Northern Railway Division of India. It uses the travel length frequency distribution to analyze the distribution of passengers' travel distances. The study shows that influence zones for railway stations vary significantly based on their hierarchy level. Higher-hierarchy stations tend to have larger and more dispersed influence zones, while those of lower-hierarchy stations tend to be smaller and more localized. The findings can be used to guide the expansion of existing stations and the improvement of transportation services. Overall, this study provides a valuable contribution to the field of transportation planning for Indian Railways. It demonstrates the importance of influence zone mapping in developing an efficient and effective transportation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The understanding and management of station stops continues to be a key issue in the operation of urban railways. Further to the recent re-working of an international dataset to provide global estimates of passenger alighting and boarding rates, this paper disaggregates these by type of railway and geographical context. These disaggregations demonstrate interesting variations reflecting plausible hypotheses about differences in passenger flow resulting from local circumstances and present a range of data for use by other researchers. Nevertheless, the preferred models generally demonstrate passenger alighting rates to be most significantly affected by the number of alighters, vestibule load/capacity and the number of doors per carriage, while the most statistically significant variables determining passenger boarding rates are the number of boarders, the vestibule load (passengers who neither alight nor board), platform width and vestibule size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wheel climb derailment frequently occurs in turnouts. This is usually because track alignments in the turnout area are very poor and the cross-sections of switch rail are not uniform. Most previous studies focused on derailments in straight or curved lines. For this reason, understanding the derailment mechanism in turnouts and revealing the influence of the wheelset motion conditions on dynamic derailment behaviour are fundamental for the development of the required dynamic derailment criteria. For this paper, a half-vehicle multi-body dynamic model for derailment simulation was established and validated. Then, the effect of three different running cases with different wheelset motion conditions was further analysed. The results show that the variable cross-sections of switch rail along the longitudinal direction with a small contact angle are the root cause of the wheel climb derailment when compared with straight and curved lines. The wheels start climbing the switch rail at regions of rail top width from 5 to 20 mm. If the effect of the switch rail is ignored, the derailment risk in the guide curve is significantly reduced. This paper can contribute to the mitigation of derailment in railway turnouts as well as to the development of safety assessment criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the expansion of urbanisation, more and more metro vehicles shuttle on dedicated railway lines, leading to serious wheel wear and reduced passenger comfort, it is therefore of interest to design a wheel profile that matches well with the dedicated lines. This paper presents a wheel profile optimisation procedure consists of 3 steps. Firstly, taking the LM profile, which widely used in China metro vehicles, as an example, the rotary-scaling fine-tuning (RSFT) method is introduced to generate a large number of candidate profiles. Secondly, to quickly and reliably establish the relationship between the candidate profiles and the objectives obtained by multi-body dynamics simulation (MBS), the radial basis function (RBF) is introduced to reduce the number of MBS runs. Thirdly, the established RBFbased function is treated as the objective function of the particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm to develop a wheel profile that simultaneously considers wheel wear and ride comfort for the B-type metro vehicles. Finally, this paper compares the wheel-rail contact characteristics, critical speed, and simulated long-term wear distribution of the LM profile and the optimised profile named as LMopt. The results show that the LMopt profile has better performance, demonstrating that the RSFT-RBF-PSO procedure is of engineering significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most railway track dynamics models focus on vertical and lateral directions. Vehicle dynamics have strong implications for track longitudinal dynamics, but railway track longitudinal force models are rarely published. This paper developed a three-dimensional railway track model which considers four structure layers: rails, sleepers, ballast and subballast. The rails are modelled using the Finite Element Method and each node has six Degrees of Freedom (DoFs). Sleepers are modelled as rigid bodies and each also has six DoFs. Ballast and subballast are modelled as blocks and each has three translational DoFs. Frictional behaviour is considered in the longitudinal direction of the fastening models as well as in the longitudinal and lateral directions of the sleeper-ballast force connections. Validations of the model are presented in this paper. Simulations of longitudinal forces are also presented. The results show that the model has the capability of simulating track longitudinal forces and the rail creep phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication errors feature prevalently as causal and contributory factors in accident analysis within rail. While matters of phraseology and protocol in communication have been used to categorise communication error, formal inquiries into major rail accidents point to an underlying "authority gradient" as an influencing factor. The aim of this paper was to understand how the influence of authority gradients on communication error has been explored by communities of research and practice in rail. To achieve a holistic understanding and identification of key research gaps, this paper also reviewed prevalent tools and frameworks applied in rail human factors, as well as other sectors impacted by power disparities between teams. The review found that while evidence from industry reports is suggestive of an authority gradient in rail, no research has been conducted to support or refute this conclusion. Moreover, an absence of authority gradients in applied research draws attention to current methodological capabilities vs research foci. The relationship between the authority/power and status/value of core rail operational functions is conceptualised, and application of Hofstede's theory of power distance to rail is considered. A number of research gaps are identified which indicate future research opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the influence of lateral and local rail deformation on the train–track interaction dynamics in high-speed railways. While the traditional method ignores the curvature of a laterally and locally deformed rail and treats it as a straight rail with an additional displacement, this paper considers the laterally and locally deformed rail as a curved rail and models the train–track interaction with lateral and local rail deformation using a reduced beam model with necessary changes to fit the curved rail. Thus, the presented model is more realistic and can accurately and efficiently analyses the influence of lateral and local rail deformation on the train–track interaction dynamics. After calculation of dynamic responses of train–track interaction with lateral and local rail deformation with and without rail irregularities, the influence of the amplitude of lateral and local rail deformation and vehicle velocity on transient derailment criteria is analysed, and the derailment boundary is finally obtained. It is found that the traditional method underestimates dynamic responses of train–track interaction with lateral and local rail deformation and overestimates the derailment boundary of the vehicle, and the risk of derailment and rail damage increases with the increasing amplitude of the lateral and local rail deformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Railway Mania of the mid-1840s led to a massive expansion of the railway network, a socially beneficial legacy that however produced a collapse of profitability and dividends. Paradoxically, the majority of this expansion was carried out by established (and hitherto successful) railways, rather than Mania promotions. Campbell and Turner (2015) see this expansion as a rational, indeed optimal, response to the Mania: they would have been worse placed with alternative strategies. This paper contends that it was established railways which began the expansion in 1843–1844, and that the high returns they generated for their shareholders depended crucially on the rights issues that financed their projected lines. This helps to explain both shareholder support for expansion, and investor enthusiasm for Mania projections. But the new lines were unprofitable: the established railways' expansionary strategy was a major managerial failure with, in the longer term, disastrous consequences for shareholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the planning of privatization within government. It is based on the author's unique access to internal government papers in his role as the Official Historian of Privatization, as well as interviews with former ministers, government officials and industry management. The paper reveals that a number of the problems that have arisen since privatization were foreseen.* * The author was given access to internal government papers yet to be released for public inspection under the 30-year rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Out-of-roundness in railway wheels, in particular polygonal wear resulting in regular, multi-lobed, out-of-round wheels, has become a significant problem in recent years. It is of concern to railway operators due to the increased noise and vibration it can cause. This polygonisation is caused by cyclic wear but the exact mechanism leading to this type of wear is not fully understood. It appears to be the result of dynamic linking between a resonance or other periodic excitation in the coupled vehicle–track system and the existing wear at the wheel. This paper reviews the developing body of research being carried out in many countries by research groups, manufacturers and operators. Some examples of polygonisation on different types of railway vehicles are reported including feight trains, urban transit trains and high-speed trains. The main theories for the formation mechanisms are presented and the current measurement methods, computer simulation techniques and the effects and potential mitigation methods are reviewed. In parallel, the mechanisms and consequences of discrete wheel tread irregularities, such as wheel flats and material fall-out due to rolling contact fatigue cracking, are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thin-walled tubes have been widely used as energy-absorbing devices since they are light and have high energy absorption efficiency. However, the downside is that conventional thin-walled tubes usually exhibit an excessive peak crushing force (PCF) and large fluctuations in the force-displacement curve. Corrugated tubes are introduced to reduce the PCF and to increase the stability of energy-absorbing devices. Since the performance of corrugated tubes is highly influenced by their geometry, design optimization methods can be utilized to optimize the performance of corrugated tubes. It is difficult to apply conventional gradient-based optimization methods in crashworthiness analysis because of the strong nonlinearity and large computational time. In this paper, we utilize shape design optimization based on an adaptive surrogate model. The EA is maximized in transition crushing mode (T-mode), which is the boundary between progressive crushing mode (P-mode) and simultaneous crushing mode (S-mode), while simultaneously optimizing the contact force efficiency (CFE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wheel defects can induce damage to the railway tracks, increasing considerable maintenance costs for both railway administrations and rolling stock operators. This paper aims to develop an unsupervised early damage detection methodology, capable of automatically distinguishing a defective wheel from a healthy one, with respect to the small flat size. The proposed methodology is based on the acceleration and shear time histories evaluated on the rails for the passage of traffic loads, and involves the following steps: (i) data acquisition from sensors; (ii) feature extraction from acquired responses with continuous wavelet transform (CWT) model; (iii) feature normalisation to suppress environmental and operational variations; (iv) data fusion to merge the features from each sensor and enhance sensitivity to detect wheel defects; and (v) feature classification to classify the extracted features into two categories: a healthy wheel or a defective one. The shear and acceleration measurement points are strategically defined in order to examine the sensitivity of the proposed methodology, not only to the type of sensors, but also to the position where they are installed. It has been demonstrated that one sensor can detect a defective wheel automatically, allowing the development of an easy-to-implement low-cost monitoring system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a two-stage model for determining the sustainable location of dry ports. In the first stage, a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model containing nine criteria is developed. The weight of criteria is determined by the stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) method, and then the ranking of alternative cities is determined by the weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) method. In the second stage, a mixed-integer linear programming location model with multiple capacity levels is proposed to determine the final optimal cities for the dry ports by minimizing the relevant economic costs, environmental costs and social responsibility costs. A case study of Ningbo-Zhoushan Port is performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model. The results show that: (1) the total cost of the optimized inland transportation network system is reduced by 49.661% compared with that before the optimization, with Suzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Changsha, Wuxi and Hefei identified as the optimal locations for the dry ports; and (2) shippers close to seaports tend to choose road transportation, while shippers far away from seaports tend to choose rail transportation through dry ports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As dramatically confirmed by the recent earthquakes in Amatrice and Visso in 2016, and by the collapse of a road bridge along the Savona-Torino highway in 2019, Italy and all its constructions and infrastructures passing through its territory are potentially exposed to considerable seismic and hydrogeological risks. Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), in its role of Infrastructure Manager, is responsible for the management and safety of the rail traffic on the Italian network. RFI has therefore implemented a safety management system that ensures the control of the risks associated with railway operations, including seismic and hydrogeological risks. The first part of the paper provides an overview on the exposition of the Italian railway network. The strategies adopted by RFI for mitigating the abovementioned risks are then described as based on a combination of passive and active countermeasures. Eventually, the paper describes the future trends and developments for updating and improving the internal procedures and the tools currently available for reducing the consequences on the railway network of potentially harmful natural events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the nineteenth century, significant developments in transport and transport infrastructure technologies led to drastic changes not only in countries' economies but also in their societies. The European world economy absorbed the Ottoman Empire into its ambit and railway construction initiated by Europeans also shaped the nature and direction of social and economic changes in the vast territory that the Empire had controlled. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of railways on Ottoman society modernization. The paper investigates how economic and social changes took place in traditional life in the empire and how and to what extent the lives and consumption patterns of Anatolian people were changed by the construction of railways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parameters as well as their corresponding reference values, adopted to control the compaction quality during the construction of High-speed Rail(HSR) embankments in different countries are summarised in this paper. Different measurement methods for the degree of compaction are analysed with the comparison of the features of various plate loading tests. To investigate the relationships between different compaction control parameters, we conducted in-situ compaction tests on three particular subdivisional railway earthworks at Zhangjiakou-Datong HSR and Inner Mongolia-Jiangxi Railway: a bridge foundation pit below the embankment-bridge transition section, a geogrid-reinforced cushion above embankment foundation, and an excavated channel for drainage ditch. We investigate the relations of the Dynamic Deformation Modulus (Evd) versus the Reaction Modulus (K30), Evd versus the compaction coefficient (K) by analysing the measured data. The analysis result shows good linear correlations between Evd and K30, as well as Evd and K. Based on the analysis performed in this paper combined with our engineering practices, recommended reference values of the compaction control indicators for bridge foundation pit below a transition section and the bottoms of drainage ditches are also proposed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management of operational disruptions with support of information is essential to facilitate the shift from road to rail and to ensure efficient hinterland intermodal transport chains. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the operational efficiency effects of information on operational disruption management in hinterland transport with a dry port to facilitate efficient intermodal hinterland transport. For that purpose, a simulation model with five scenarios was developed and applied using empirical data from a real-world case of a hinterland transport chain with a dry port. The results show that the resource utilisation of the trucks that deliver containers from the dry port to the receivers can be increased using the information that supports management of the disruption. Nevertheless, in attempts to increase resource utilisation when managing the disruption, issues arose from efficiency measures that are important for other actors, e.g. the receivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the trend of promoting economy, environmental protection and high efficiency in the urban rail transit industry, this paper proposes a new type of straddle-type rapid transit system. Compared with most straddle-type monorail systems, it has the advantages of low construction cost and low operating cost, which makes it more suitable for urban rail transit system in small and medium-sized cities. In the process of vehicle development and design, in order to achieve the coordination and matching of tire systems and reduce the wear of tire systems, this work uses a multi-objective optimisation method to reduce the guiding torque of each tire system when the vehicle passes through the curve. Based on the vehicle dynamics model, the multi-body dynamics simulation model of the vehicle is established. The guiding torque of each tire system is taken as the optimisation objective, and the position and dynamic parameters of each tire system are taken as the optimisation parameter. Based on the NSGA-II algorithm, the ISIGHT and SIMPACK software are used for co-simulation. Finally, the guiding torque of each tire system is effectively reduced, and the coordination and matching of tire system is realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue is based on a selection of the four best papers from the Third International Seminar on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis held in Zurich from 11 to 13 February 2009. The papers have been selected and reviewed by Board and other senior members of the International Association of Railway Operations Research (IAROR) and subsequently revised by their authors. The authors and their papers come from universities in Sweden, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland and Portugal. They represent valuable contributions to the current state of scientific and professional knowledge in the area of railway operations that can stimulate the broader application and further development of advanced analytical, combinatorial and simulation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning of transport infrastructure in Sweden has undergone successive legislative changes as well as neoliberal corporatization and marketization reforms in recent years, with a general aim to increase efficiency and effectiveness. This paper presents planning practitioners' experiences of far-reaching marketization of physical planning practice in line with a strategy within the Swedish Transport Administration (STA) to become a 'Pure Purchaser'. The strategy implies that all practical planning work should be carried out by procured consultants. The paper follows a qualitative, explorative approach based on document studies and interviews with practitioners actively involved in carrying out physical planning of road and rail investments. The concept of 'modes of governance' is applied to highlight and analytically interpret differences in perspectives on efficient and effective governance as expressed in the planning legislation, and the STA marketization strategy, respectively. The empirical results make evident that the recent marketization reforms are generally perceived as strongly and negatively affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of planning practices while also circumscribing professional discretion. The study highlights the importance of specific organization and management perspectives as explanatory factors in studying efficiency and effectiveness of planning practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the relationship between transit station proximity and new business creation in five US regions with varying levels of maturity in rail transit development and/or entrepreneurial ecosystems: Boston, San Jose, Austin, Cleveland and Philadelphia. It tests a variety of spatial econometric models to find the best specification and compares the results with the kinds of non-spatial models currently used in the literature. This provides a better understanding of the role of various forms of spatial dependence in the transit - new business creation relationship and shows that existing models may overstate the impact of transit on new business creation. In addition, the paper teases out differences between regions, rail modes and business types that can be usefully applied to a variety of urban contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mainline railways in Australia were initially built in three different gauges, with 'breaks-of-gauge' where passengers and goods transferred between them. This paper studies how the gauge situation affected regional development and the railway network in the 20th century. Regional breaks-of-gauge caused substantial local growth, with population and employment increasing by around 50% within a decade of them opening. However, these effects were unwound within two decades of a break-of-gauge being closed. There is little evidence of gauge segmentation causing different paces of regional development. The gauge muddle also appears to have limited the extent of the railway network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the complex and time-critical work practices within operational train traffic in Sweden by reporting on an incident causing an infrastructure breakdown and large traffic disruptions. Based on a workplace study approach, we report on how the control room workers – train traffic controllers and information officers – grasp, make sense of, and handle the consequences of the incident as it unfolds in real-time. We portray how the workers develop and acquire a sense of place in relation to the incident's severity which is essential for successfully handling the situation. By introducing the 'sense of place' concept originally derived from the field of natural resources to the domain of operational train traffic, we provide a deepened understanding of the challenges characterising remote control work from a safety-critical socio-technical systems perspective. Finally, reflections on the application of the 'sense of place' concept, safety aspects and directions for future research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The running stability of a railway vehicle, which is highly relevant for operational safety, strongly depends on the shapes of the profiles of wheel and rail, which change during the progress of wear. The model-based condition monitoring of a key parameter, such as the wheelsets equivalent conicity, is one of the approaches to realize condition-based maintenance and ensure railway vehicles reliability and running safety. A constrained nonlinear estimation technique is developed in this paper concerning the monitoring of the equivalent conicity. Suitable modelling of the railway vehicle dynamics is presented for the model-based estimator synthesis to perform the equivalent conicity monitoring employing only the carbody and bogie frame measurements, taking into account the track adhesion level variation. This approach allows avoiding the wheelset sensorization affected by a harsh and vibrational environment, thus reducing the possibility to produce inaccurate measurements. Another direct consequence of this approach is the reduction of costs relative to vehicle sensorization. Moreover, the possibility to constraint the estimated vehicle states and parameters allows considering their operative acceptance limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the track friendliness of a railway vehicle can benefit the railway industry significantly. Rail surface damage in curves can be reduced by using vehicles with a lower Primary Yaw Stiffness (PYS); however, this can reduce high-speed stability and worsen ride comfort. Previous studies have shown that this trade-off between track friendliness and passenger comfort can be successfully combated by using an inerter in the primary suspension; however, these utilise simplified vehicle models, contact models, and track inputs. Considering a realistic four-axle passenger vehicle model, this paper investigates the extent to which the PYS can be reduced with inertance-integrated primary lateral suspensions without increasing root-mean-square (RMS) carbody lateral accelerations. The vehicle model, with these enhanced suspensions, has been created in VAMPIRE ® , with the dynamics being captured over a range of vehicle velocities and equivalent conicities. Based on systematic optimisations using network-synthesis theory, several beneficial inertance-integrated configurations are identified, and the PYS can be reduced by up to 47% compared to the default vehicle (a potential Network Rail Variable Usage Charge saving of 26%), without increasing RMS carbody lateral accelerations. Further simulations are performed to investigate the vehicle's performance in curve transitions and when subject to one-off peak lateral track irregularities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developed essentially in the context of American cities, the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) model has also occupied the literature regarding European cities, especially those with long developed urban rail systems. This paper provides a critical overview of the TOD model regarding three main topics: key features and typologies; benefits, drawbacks and implementation challenges; and readiness criteria. It then proceeds to an investigation of the potential for implementing the TOD model in the context of Southern European cities, traditionally considered to fall into typical compact forms of development, many of which also lack integrated urban and transport planning. Based on the case of Thessaloniki, Greece, which introduces urban rail by constructing a metro system, a typology is proposed, adapted to the case of a dense and mixed-use city, and two pilot TOD plans are presented. The paper highlights that an integrated urban and transport planning based on a modification of the TOD model could be implemented in Southern European cities, taking advantage of their compact and mixed-use features but also constraining the relatively recent phenomenon of suburban dispersion. Nevertheless, overcoming the multiple institutional and financing barriers is necessary to guarantee a successful transfer and adaptation of the TOD model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the nineteenth century, railroads brought a substantial shift in trade and production worldwide. While this motivated underdeveloped economies to massively invest in this transportation technology, the literature on the impact of railroads includes mixed findings from a historical perspective. Using a new dataset on the population of judicial districts and railroads in the Ottoman Empire between 1881 and 1914, we examine the relationship between railroad access and economic growth in the local economies of a developing and little-known country on the eve of the First World War. Our empirical results confirm the population size expansion in the areas affected by railroads. This impact could be connected with economic growth in the Ottoman Empire, leading to higher employment opportunities and fertility rates, based on the arguments of historical research. To deal with endogeneity problems, we use an instrumental variable (IV) strategy. Our 2SLS results also indicate the presence of causality from access to railroads to population growth. The paper contributes to the previous literature by offering new empirical insights on the long debated topic about how transformation of transport networks induced economic growth in an agricultural economy facing drastic changes during the first globalization boom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse the development of the Portuguese railway in time and space, between 1845 and 2015. The development of the railway in mainland Portugal was a subject of interest to several stakeholders, including politicians, private investors, constructors, and the state itself. This article aims to explore what actors were involved in the development of the Portuguese railway, their respective goals and planning mechanisms. Focus is placed on the Portuguese state’s attempts to specifically shape the rail sector in its national infrastructure, while confronting it with the interests of the private initiative. By discussing the transformations seen in the urban and countryside spaces on which the railway network was built, this paper provides an overview of the effects that the railway had on the Portuguese territory and its urban areas. A comparative analysis of the railway system in the past and present reveals that the current layout of the Portuguese railway network does not differ greatly from that of the early twentieth century. Finally, it is shown that the history of the Portuguese railway coincided with different periods of significant socio-economic changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As rail operators look for efficiency improvement, a new trend towards integration of detection technologies on revenue raising rolling stock has emerged, the objective being that a saving can be made by eliminating specialised rolling stock and reducing network scheduling. An area currently attracting research attention in the Australian heavy haul segment is the detection of rail foot flaws from moving vehicles through the use of Infrared Thermography. This paper presents a modelling and simulation methodology for full train simulation using a co-simulation approach for calculating heat transfer in the rail under a number of different vehicle system dynamics cases. The excitation source for the heat transfer focuses only on wheel/rail contact mechanics. The paper will explore the problem from a Modulated Thermography perspective that uses periodic heating and observation of the heating process for flaw detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructing 3D railway scenes helps improve the railway information construction ability and the comprehensive railway management level. However, the existing modeling methods have disadvantages such as low flexibility in scene configuration, weak extensibility of scene objects and poor reusability of modeling knowledge. To enable multitype 3D railway scenes to be automatically constructed, a template-based knowledge reuse method was proposed in this paper. First, based on parsing of modeling operation characteristics and modeling knowledge expression, a modeling knowledge template was designed to store modeling knowledge and modeling operations in a parameterized way. The contents of this template were described in terms of semantic information, geometric information, topologic information and reference system information, and the method for instantiating the modeling knowledge template was proposed. Second, a scene configuration template was designed to organize the instantiated modeling knowledge files and scene objects. By the use of a flexible tree structure, the scene configuration template enables extensibility of scene objects. Finally, the two types of templates were parsed in terms of scene organization, linear referencing information, geometric and topologic relationships, and semantic descriptions. In this way, different types of 3D railway scenes were generated automatically. After a prototype system was developed, experiments on automatic modeling of two 3D railway scenes were carried out to verify the template-based knowledge reuse method. The experimental results show that the proposed method can be used to generate multitype 3D railway scenes automatically. With this method, model combination can be configured, model types can be extended and modeling knowledge can be reused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to the discontinuity of the rail profile of a normal turnout, the unique S-shaped curve of a crossover significantly affects the negotiation performance of a train. For heavy-haul freight trains, the in-train forces generated during the braking process may further deteriorate the running safety. Investigating the dynamic behaviour of the train passing through the crossover under braking forces, therefore, can provide a reasonable basis for ensuring train safety. This paper analyses the dynamic response and wheel wear of a three-vehicle train negotiating a single crossover under variable conditions, including variable braking forces, wheel-rail friction coefficient, and crossover layout forms. The results show that the three factors have considerable influences on train safety. If one of the three factors keeps an ideal level, the safe probability of empty wagons can be significantly improved. Considering that there are still some crossovers with tight curves in the existing railway system, avoiding large braking or lubricating the wheel flange in the crossover is still an effective solution to improve the vehicle's performance. In addition, for a new single crossover, a 600-m-radius curve is a good option for balancing permissible train speeds and construction costs of the crossover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]