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This study sought direct estimates of incidence, preventative costs, and reactive costs associated with the occurrence of low risk (‘typical’) Signal Passed at Danger (SPAD) events in Australasian rail. In a cross-sectional multiple-case design, a descriptive questionnaire was sent to eight operators, and completed by managerial personnel with responsibility for SPAD-risk mitigation. Items addressed SPAD frequency, operator delays, and a range of preventative and reactive costs associated with low-severity (‘low-risk’) SPADs. Delay costs varied between cases, with each having different organisational size and network density. Preventative costs were mostly comprised of internal SPAD prevention team maintenance, participation in a collaborative SPAD Group, and resultant network modifications. Reactive costs were largely comprised of driver-related factors and in two cases, of higher low-risk investigation and regulatory costs. The ratio of preventative to reactive costs ( P:R ) varied widely, approaching equilibrium for two cases only—both participated in internal and external SPAD preventative team consultation. One freight organisation noted a large P:R imbalance due to very low preventative costs. Low-risk SPADs represent a host of substantial annual costs for each Australasian passenger- and freight-rail organisation. As this study gives preliminary estimates, these likely underestimate the full costs, as multiple other factors are yet to be accounted for. This study justifies the need for detailed analysis of SPAD-associated costs to contrast data from multiple rail organisations, and a clearer picture of how organisational expenses are allocated within SPAD prevention and reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In railway traffic, safety analysis is a key issue for controlling train operation. Here, the identification and order of key factors are very important. In this paper, a new network model is constructed for analyzing the railway safety, in which nodes are regarded as causation factors and links represent possible relationships among those factors. Our aim is to give all these nodes an importance order, and to find the in-depth relationship among these nodes including how failures spread among them. Based on the constructed network model, we propose a control method to ensure the safe state by setting each node a threshold. As the results, by protecting the Hub node of the constructed network, the spreading of railway accident can be controlled well. The efficiency of such a method is further tested with the help of numerical example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY One way of reducing the energy consumption of trains is to drive them in an energy-efficient manner. There can be various driving patterns between two adjacent stops, or various speed profiles, because there is a gap called the running time supplement between the planned running time set in a timetable and the shortest possible running time of the train. Previous studies have proposed using up the supplement by changing the driving operation from powering to coasting at optimal points in terms of energy consumption. Others have shown that full use of regenerative braking helps save energy. In this study, we developed an energy-efficient speed profile generator by combining these partial energy-oriented driving approaches when the planned running time is given. We added this generator to existing shortest running time calculation software, so that it works for various vehicle and train route data. Numerical experiments showed that our profile provided superior performance compared to manually created ones for artificial and real data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a model is developed for dynamic analysis of a train track with two degrees of freedom. The track length is assumed to be 100 m in order to reduce the bindery effects. A wheel defect is modeled as a corrugation on the rail surface for obtaining dynamic responses of the rail. Two vehicle masses are used containing a locomotive as an unsprung mass and a wheel as a sprung mass. Rail element is modeled as a beam with vertical displacements and end rotations. In this model, sleepers are assumed as lumped masses 60 cm apart from each other. All the components, including rails, sleepers, ballast layers and rail vehicles are connected by springs and damping elements. Analysis of the model is performed by numerical solution through solving differential equations representing the entire system. In all equations, relations between the elements are taken as finite elements. Finally, all responses, displacements, velocities and accelerations of all degrees of freedom are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a laboratory investigation on the performances and mixture combination parameters of railway asphalt concrete (RAC) for supporting high-speed railway slab track. To apply the RAC effectively to high-speed railway infrastructures, modified highway asphalt pavement material tests are conducted to verify mixture parameters. A suitable gradation is recommended based on the test results. The air voids of the material RAC-25 used for railway infrastructure should be controlled from 1 to 3%. The results presented in the paper demonstrate that asphalt content can be determined based on modified mixture parameters. To verify the performance and analyze the mechanistic response of RAC infrastructure, full-scale laboratory dynamic models are established under different environmental temperatures and loading levels. Based on model testing, the reinforced RAC foundation with a 12 cm deep graded gravel layer replaced by RAC-25 shows much better performance compared with the traditional design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a sensitivity analysis to quantify the dominant train properties (mass and spacing of wheels and bogies) that contribute to ground-borne vibration generation, with the aim of reducing the complexity of train–track numerical models. This research is significant because ground-borne vibration from railways is a growing problem, particularly in urban areas. Despite this fact, attempting to predict vibration levels is complex because there are many variables that contribute to the overall dynamic response. Therefore, a deterministic approach is commonly used, that ignores many of these variables. Thus, this paper identifies the variables that can be ignored, while highlighting those that are highly influential on vibration generation. For this purpose, a previously validated 2.5D finite elements-boundary elements approach is used to simulate dynamic train–track interaction. It is computed many times for a variety of modelling variables to investigate the effect of each on the ground-borne vibration levels in the far field. It is found that increases in unsprung mass of the train causes a large increase in vibration levels. Furthermore, changes in wheel/bogie spacing and semi-sprung mass are found to have a minimal effect on vibration generation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the environment around the rail track at different sites in Nile Delta region, Egypt, through the measurements of the air pollutants and corrosive ionic species present in surface soil and also to investigate the impact of the existing contaminants on the composition of iron rust formed on the rail head surface at these sites and then the durability of rail itself. Design/methodology/approach – The soil characterization was studied by means of sieve shakers, pH meter, conductivity meter and ion chromatography instrument. Scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction were used to characterize the rust layer formed on the rail head surface. Findings – The results showed the relation between the contaminants and the composition of the rust layer. Magnetite and goethite were the major phases identified in the rust layers. Akaganeite was detected in the marine atmosphere. Iron sulfide and iron oxide nitrate hydroxide were detected in environments rich in H2S and NO2 gases, respectively. The appearance of phases like FeCl2 and FeOCl only at marine atmospheres reflects that the corrosive species in suspended particulate matter like chloride ion have a higher effect on the rust composition of the rail head surface than that in surface soil layer. Originality/value – This paper revealed the impact of air and soil contaminants on the composition of rust layer on the rail head surface and may provide guidance for the durability of rails and the necessity for their preservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Harbin-Dalian high-speed railway in northeastern China has a significant portion of track foundation built on seasonally frozen ground. Wide-spread frost heave was observed during the first winter of its operation and the heave occurred mainly in coarse fills that were considered not susceptible to frost heave. This paper first presents the field data of frost heave and frost depth observed along the railway. It then analyses alternative mechanisms that have been considered to have caused the observed frost heave. The three most likely mechanisms are poor quality control of fine content in the coarse fill, the top-down water supply mechanism, and the bottom-up water supply mechanism. The likelihoods of these mechanisms are analysed against observed field data, using a one-dimensional frost heave model. The results indicate that the most likely explanation for the unexpected frost heave is a combined action of different mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimization of wagon flow organization in heavy-haul loading areas is meaningful to develop a heavy-haul railway network and to improve transportation capacity. This paper proposes a multiobjective optimization of the wagon flow organization for heavy-haul railway (MWFHR) to improve the transportation efficiency and the economic performance of a railway network. A bi-level algorithm is constructed to solve this model, where the lower level of the algorithm collects wagon flows for organization through the ant colony optimization algorithm, and the upper level screens for the best solution set that can minimize total cost under various constraints using the traversal search algorithm. The model is numerically examined in a real case study. Comprehensive practical testing results show that the newly proposed multiobjective optimization approach is promising in establishing an efficient railway network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

North American heavy haul railroads are experiencing growth in traffic demand and increases in capacity constraints. An appropriate service-design process is thus crucial to allow for more effective network capacity planning and efficient rail operations. Existing approaches to freight train routing usually ignore the congestion-induced delay and fail to consider the dynamics in link and node delay in response to traffic volume. Furthermore, different train types can have substantially different operating characteristics, including maximum speed, power-to-ton ratio, and dispatching priority. This heterogeneity causes conflicts between trains that can increase delays and reduce capacity. Therefore, traffic volume and heterogeneity should both be incorporated into the decision process for service design. In this research, the authors proposed to add an additional traffic routing process in service design and developed a novel optimization framework to route trains by considering link and node delay, directional traffic, heterogeneity, and various delay costs according to train types. To improve the solution efficiency, a solution algorithm using Lagrangian relaxation (LR) techniques is also presented. Numerical results show that the optimal strategy has the potential to substantially reduce operational costs. Using this tool can help design better traffic routing, more efficient capacity utilization, and reliable services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the real-time crew rescheduling problem in case of large-scale disruptions. One of the greatest challenges of real-time disruption management is the unknown duration of the disruption. In this paper we present a novel approach for crew rescheduling where we deal with this uncertainty by considering several scenarios for the duration of the disruption. The rescheduling problem is similar to a two-stage optimization problem. In the first stage, at the start of the disruption, we reschedule the plan based on the optimistic scenario (i.e., assuming the shortest possible duration of the disruption), while taking into account the possibility that another scenario will be realized. We require a prescribed number of the rescheduled crew duties (a sequential list of tasks which have to be performed by a single crew member) to be recoverable. The true duration of the disruption is revealed in the second stage. By the recoverability of the duties, we expect that the first stage solution can easily be turned into a schedule that is feasible for the realized scenario. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by an application in real-time railway crew rescheduling. The ideas of this paper generalize to certain vehicle rescheduling and manufacturing problems where timetabled tasks which have a fixed start and end location are to be carried out by a given number of servers. We test our approach on a number of instances of Netherlands Railways (NS), the main operator of passenger trains in the Netherlands. The numerical experiments show that the approach indeed finds schedules which are easier to adjust if it turns out that another scenario than the optimistic one is realized for the duration of the disruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safety is an essential requirement for railway transportation. There are many methods that have been developed to predict, prevent, and mitigate accidents in this context. All of these methods have their own purpose and limitations. This paper presents a new useful analysis technique: timed fault tree analysis. This method extends traditional fault tree analysis with temporal events and fault characteristics. Timed fault trees (TFTs) can determine which faults need to be eliminated urgently, and it can also provide how much time have been left at least to eliminate the root failure to prevent accidents. They can also be used to determine the time taken for railway maintenance requirements, and thereby improve maintenance efficiency, and reduce risks. In this paper, we present the features and functionality of a railway transportation system, and principles and rules of TFTs. We demonstrate the applicability of our framework by a case study on a simple railway transportation system. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With development of transport technology and Transportation Demand, the loading reinforcement plan of railway long heavy goods is only decided by Transportation Enterprise and plan-making-Company. It has been unable to meet the development of railway transport of goods. It needs consider the demand of customer at the same time. A Multi-objective Optimization Model of the loading reinforcement plan is established by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). It is the first time that the customer demand is included in the Loading Plan optimization goals. It fully considered the demand of the plan-maker, the plan-user and customer. The four evaluation objectives are determined in the optimization model which is transportation security, transit time, transportation costs, and customer satisfaction. The weight of four first stage objective values and the second stage objective value safe of transport are confirmed in this paper. An application example shows that it can get a better plan by the comprehensive evaluation of three plans for different customer needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is aimed at developing automated methods to recognize railroad infrastructure from 3D LIDAR data. Railroad infrastructure includes rail tracks, contact cables, catenary cables, return current cables, masts, and cantilevers. The LIDAR dataset used in this study is acquired by placing an Optech Lynx mobile mapping system on a railcar, operating at 125 km/h. The acquired dataset covers 550 meters of Austrian rural railroad corridor comprising 31 railroad key elements and containing only spatial information. The proposed methodology recognizes key components of the railroad corridor based on their physical shape, geometrical properties, and the topological relationships among them. The developed algorithms managed to recognize all key components of the railroad infrastructure, including two rail tracks, thirteen masts, thirteen cantilevers, one contact cable, one catenary cable, and one return current cable. The results are presented and discussed both at object level and at point cloud level. The results indicate that 100% accuracy and 100% precision at the object level and an average of 96.4% accuracy and an average of 97.1% precision at point cloud level are achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With recent advances in wireless networks, communication-based train control (CBTC) has become a popular approach to ensure the safe and efficient operation of railway trains. The requirements for train-ground communication in CBTC systems are stringent. Most existing works about train-ground communication systems consider the infrastructure mode without train-train direct communications. Due to unreliable wireless communications and frequent handovers, existing CBTC systems can severely affect train control efficiency and performance, as well as the utility of railway. In this paper, with recent advances in cooperative and cognitive wireless networks, we propose a CBTC system to enable train-train direct communications. In addition, the proposed cooperative and cognitive CBTC system is optimized with the cognitive control method. Unlike the exiting works on cooperative and cognitive wireless networks, in this paper, train control performance in CBTC systems is explicitly used as the performance measure in the design. Reinforcement learning is applied to obtain the optimal handover decision and adaption policy of communication parameters. Simulation result shows that the performance of train control can be improved significantly in our proposed cooperative and cognitive CBTC system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the new research challenges for forecasting urban goods demand by rail. In fact, the growing interest to find urban logistics solutions for improving city sustainability and liveability, mainly due to the reduction of urban road accessibility and environmental constraints, has pushed to explore solutions alternative to the road. Multimodal urban logistics, based on the use of railway, seem an interesting alternative solution, but it remained mainly at conceptual level. Few studies have explored the factors, that push actors to find competitive such a system with respect to the road, and modelling framework for forecasting the relative demand. Therefore, paper reviews the current literature, investigates the factors involved in choosing such a mode, and finally, recalls a recent modelling framework and hence proposes some advancements that allow to point out the rail transport alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure managers of networks across the European Union have been challenged with the need to innovate the management frameworks they have in place in order to ensure the continued operation of their networks, under increasingly burdensome constraints. Limitation of resources and variations of interest or priority of different stakeholders of road infrastructure networks often lead to multiple considerations of intervention options. It is of interest to identify the best available intervention or investment option under a multi-criteria framework. Markers of performance may be varied, and the approach towards maintenance management may have different philosophies based on specific organisational structures of governance. This paper presents a methodology for cross-asset management that caters to different maintenance management systems without modification. Optimisation approaches and effective implementation methods are identified. Practical implementation guidelines of the developed framework are illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the vulnerability of a transportation network is defined from the perspective of the sensitivity of the transportation system against external disturbances. The generalised travel time is defined as the weighting of both the ratio of actual travel time to free travel time and the unreliability of the travel time. The reciprocal of generalised travel time taken as the utility function, the impact of external disturbances on the transportation system can be quantified. Meanwhile, the vulnerability model is established using the change rate of the utility index. The stochastic user equilibrium traffic assignment model is formulated on the assumption of minimisation of travel cost. Finally, the real road network of the city of Harbin in China is taken as an example to illustrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed model. This approach can be used as a decision-supporting tool for identifying critical infrastructures in transportation management and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's visitors to Canaan Valley know little about its former impenetrability and remoteness. Canaan Valley's colorful parade of historical events began with the arrival of pioneer settlers and was followed by establishment of logging camps and railroads, devastating wildfires, and later, the US Forest Service era of planting and conservation programs. Recently, the Canaan Valley Resort and Blackwater Falls were developed as lodging and recreational facilities to help make Canaan Valley a vacation destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important quality indicators of public transportation is punctuality. Deviations from schedule reduce the level of service. Analyzing historical data, exploring and categorizing the causes of delays correlations can be determined. Based on them, the schedule deviations are predictable. In our research the schedule deviations on railway stations have been investigated based on the manually registered information of the Hungarian Railways. The study mainly focused on the delay causes that were generated by random external factors. Particularly, effects of the certain weather conditions have been highlighted. The analysis has been conducted on railway lines with different infrastructure. Contexts based on the results of the research can be built into traffic prediction models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cab signal plays an important position to guarantee the railway train operation safety and to improve the railway transport efficiency. Now, with the development of railway and the acceleration of train speed, the cab signal has been required as main rather than auxiliary cab signal as before. In view of this, the accurate and stable cab signal is a must in the process of running. Therefore, the analysis of waveform instantaneous frequency recorded on the recorder by means of the data processing system is an important means to solve the above problem and also a necessary and important task. In this case, this paper put forth to apply digital phase discrimination technology to the detection of frequency shift signal upper/lower side frequency and signal modulation lower frequency[3]. Compared with other methods, this method is characteristic of simple calculation and accurate and fast detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the development of suburbs in Berlin and Cairo at the turn of the 20th century from a comparative perspective. Focusing on the interrelation of a critique of the city, suburban railways and the promotion of specific subjectivities, I argue that railway infrastructure offered new ways of social distinction for the middle classes in Berlin and Cairo. Trains and train stations were not only a means of transportation that linked the cities to their suburbs. They also became incorporated into practices that contemporaries described as producing suburban subjects. Contemporary publications presented train rides as providing room for reading, rationalizing technology or enjoying the historic landscape. These activities were seen as central contributions to the production of happy and healthy middle-class suburbanites, who differed from the lower classes of the city. I argue that this development ultimately sheds light on a shared history of subject formation in Berlin and Cairo. While acknowledging differences in power structures, the paper thus calls for a bridging of historical research on European and non-European cities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wireless Sensor Networks constitute pervasive and distributed computing systems and are potentially one of the most important technologies of this century. They have been specifically identified as a good candidate to become an integral part of the protection of critical infrastructures. In this paper we focus on railway infrastructure protection and we present the details of a sensor platform designed to be integrated into a slab track system in order to carry out both installation and maintenance monitoring activities. In the installation phase, the platform helps operators to install the slab tracks in the right position. In the maintenance phase, the platform collects information about the structural health and behavior of the infrastructure when a train travels along it and relays the readings to a base station. The base station uses trains as data mules to upload the information to the internet. The use of a train as a data mule is especially suitable for collecting information from remote or inaccessible places which do not have a direct connection to the internet and require less network infrastructure. The overall aim of the system is to deploy a permanent economically viable monitoring system to improve the safety of railway infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high speed railway line Madrid-Extremadura crosses over the Almonte River at its arrival at Alcantara reservoir through a viaduct that consists of a large arch bridge of high strength concrete with superior deck and 384 m main span. That span will turn the bridge in 2015, when it is scheduled to be completed, into the largest arch bridge for high-speed railway in the world. Because of this uniqueness, a number of specific verifications and analysis are necessary to address its design and construction. Major design decisions are described in this article, including the choice of typology, obtaining of the antifunicular form for the arch, wind analysis and wind tunnel studies, and complex nonlinear time dependent models analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent development of railway traction drives, four-quadrant converters are widely adopted at the grid side as front-end converters. Since the switching frequency of such megawatt-rated converters is limited to several hundreds of hertz, the bandwidth of the current controller is usually restricted. In addition to feedback control of instantaneous current, indirect current control (ICC) is also an alternative in high-power low-switching-frequency applications. Suffering from the inherent cross coupling between active and reactive power as well as sluggish response of ac current, traditional ICC is not a perfect solution for power conversion. To realize the independent control of active and reactive power, a phasor diagram arranged in an orthogonal coordinate system is introduced. In order to improve the dynamic performance of ICC, a transient-free current control method is proposed after analyzing the characteristic of ac current response in detail. In addition, a large-signal model of dc voltage loop, which is based on the conception of average power control, is set up. Finally, robustness to circuit parameters and adaptability to weak grids are certified for the transient-free controller. Both simulation and experimental results are presented to prove the validity of the proposed control scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Modern rail construction uses continuous-welded rail (CWR). The presence of very few joints leads to an increasing concern due to the large longitudinal loads caused by restrained thermal expansion and contraction, following seasonal temperature variations. The knowledge of the current state of thermal stress in the rail or, equivalently, the rail neutral temperature (corresponding to zero net longitudinal force) is a key need within the railroad transportation community in order to properly schedule slow-order mandates and prevent derailments. This paper presents a nondestructive diagnostic system for measurement of the neutral temperature in CWR based on nonlinear ultrasonic guided waves. The theoretical part of the study involved the development of a constitutive model in order to explain the origin of nonlinear effects arising in complex waveguides under constrained thermal expansion. A numerical framework has been implemented to predict internal resonance conditions of nonlinear waves in complex waveguides. This theoretical/numerical phase has led to the development of an experimental prototype (Rail-NT) that was tested both in the laboratory and in the field. The results of these experimental tests are also summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broken rails are the most frequent cause of freight-train derailments in the United States. Consequently, reducing their occurrence is a high priority for the rail industry and the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration. Current practice is to periodically inspect rails to detect defects using nondestructive technology such as ultrasonic inspection. Determining the optimal rail inspection frequency is critical to efficient use of infrastructure management resources and maximizing the beneficial impact on safety. Minimization of derailment risk, costs of inspection vehicle operation, rail defect repair, and corresponding train delay are all affected by rail inspection frequency. However, no prior research has incorporated all of these factors into a single integrated framework. The objective of this paper is to develop an analytical model to address the trade-offs among various factors related to rail defect inspection frequency, so as to maximize railroad safety and efficiency. The analysis shows that the optimal inspection frequency will vary with traffic density, rail age, inspection technology reliability, and other factors. The optimization model provides a tool that can be used to aid development of better-informed, more effective infrastructure management and accident prevention policies and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with considerations regarding the geometric filtering effect of the bounce and pitch movements derived from a railway vehicle movement on a track with irregularities. The cases in which the geometric filtering effect of the bounce and pitch movements in a bogie are presented and so is for a bogie-based vehicle, plus the corresponding filtering frequencies. The characteristics of the geometric filtering of the symmetrical and antisymmetrical movements of bounce and pitch are examined for the plans of axles in a vehicle. The analysis of the geometric filtering effect influence upon the behavior of vertical vibrations proves the selective nature of the geometric filtering depending on the velocity, the position along the carbody and the vehicle natural vibration modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper herein presents a new model of the interaction between an unbalanced wheel and rail. Acceleration of the wheel and the wheel/rail contact force are the most important parameters depending on the wheel unbalance. In fact, the two parameters increase strongly when the velocity is higher than 200 km/h. Because of that, the mass of the running gear of the high speed trains has to be low and the wheels unbalance has to be rigorously limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to accurately simulating the tribological behavior of center plate of bogie, a model was built to calculate the torsional kinematics parameters of the center plate when a railway freight-car bogie passes through a curve and a railway turnout. According to the torsional kinematics parameters, a plate-on-plate torsional friction tester was built. The variation of the torsional angle, angular speed, and angular acceleration of the center plate under different conditions was investigated. The torsional angle was affected by the distances between bogie centers and the radius of the railway circular curve. For different railway track geometries, the torsional angle of the center plate during bogie curve and turnout negotiation ranged within 0.016°-1.08° and 0.04°-1.96°, respectively. The torsional speed of the center plate under the turnout condition was much higher than that under the curve condition. The torsional friction behavior of a center plate material was simulated with the tester according to the calculated results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most railway accidents happen at railway crossings. Therefore, how to detect humans or objects present in the risk area of a railway crossing and thus prevent accidents are important tasks. In this paper, three strategies are used to detect the risk area of a railway crossing: (1) we use a terrain drop compensation (TDC) technique to solve the problem of the concavity of railway crossings; (2) we use a linear regression technique to predict the position and length of an object from image processing; (3) we have developed a novel strategy called calculating local maximum Y-coordinate object points (CLMYOP) to obtain the ground points of the object. In addition, image preprocessing is also applied to filter out the noise and successfully improve the object detection. From the experimental results, it is demonstrated that our scheme is an effective and corrective method for the detection of railway crossing risk areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents automatic guidance control of a single-articulated all-wheel-steered vehicle being developed by the Korea Railroad Research Institute. The vehicle has an independent drive motor on each wheel except for the front axle. The guidance controller is designed so that the vehicle follows the given reference path within permissible lateral deviations. We use a three-input/three-output linearised model derived from the nonlinear dynamic model of the vehicle. For the purpose of simplifying the controller and making it tunable, we consider a decentralised control configuration. We first design a second-order decoupling compensator for the two-input/two-output system that is strongly coupled and then design a first-order controller for each decoupled feedback loop by using the characteristic ratio assignment method. The simulation results for the nonlinear dynamic model indicate that the proposed control configuration successfully achieves the design objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various studies indicate that at the same noise level and during the daytime, annoyance increases in the order of rail, road, and aircraft noise. The present study investigates if the same ranking can be found for annoyance to nocturnal exposure and next day cognitive performance. Annoyance ratings and performance change during combined noise exposure were also tested. In the laboratory 72 participants were exposed to air, road, or rail traffic noise and all combinations. The number of noise events and LAS,eq were kept constant. Each morning noise annoyance questionnaires and performance tasks were administered. Aircraft noise annoyance ranked first followed by railway and road noise. A possible explanation is the longer duration of aircraft noise events used in this study compared to road and railway noise events. In contrast to road and rail traffic, aircraft noise annoyance was higher after nights with combined exposure. Pooled noise exposure data showed small but significant impairments in reaction times (6 ms) compared to nights without noise. The noise sources did not have a differential impact on performance. Combined exposure to multiple traffic noise sources did not induce stronger impairments than a single noise source. This was reflected also in low workload ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, exposure-response relationships for annoyance due to freight and passenger railway vibration exposure in residential environments are developed, so as to better understand the differences in human response to these two sources of environmental vibration. Data for this research come from a field study comprising interviews with respondents and measurements of their vibration exposure (N = 752). A logistic regression model is able to accurately classify 96% of these measured railway vibration signals as freight or passenger based on two signal properties that quantify the duration and low frequency content of each signal. Exposure-response relationships are then determined using ordinal probit modeling with fixed thresholds. The results indicate that people are able to distinguish between freight and passenger railway vibration, and that the annoyance response due to freight railway vibration is significantly higher than that due to passenger railway vibration, even for equal levels of exposure. In terms of a community tolerance level, the population studied is 15 dB (re 10-6 ms-2) more tolerant to passenger railway vibration than freight railway vibration. These results have implications for the expansion of freight traffic on rail, or for policies to promote passenger railway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Railway induced vibration is an important source of annoyance among residents living in the vicinity of railways. Annoyance increases with vibration magnitude. However, these correlations between the degree of annoyance and vibration exposure are weak. This suggests that railway vibration induced annoyance is governed by more than just vibration level and therefore other factors may provide information to understand the wide variation in annoyance reactions. Factors coming into play when considering an exposure-response relationship between level of railway vibration and annoyance are presented. The factors investigated were: attitudinal, situational and demographic factors. This was achieved using data from field studies comprised of face-to-face interviews and internal vibration measurements (N = 755). It was found that annoyance scores were strongly influenced by two attitudinal factors: Concern of property damage and expectations about future levels of vibration. Type of residential area and age of the respondent were found to have an important effect on annoyance whereas visibility of the railway and time spent at home showed a significant but small influence. These results indicate that future railway vibration policies and regulations focusing on community impact need to consider additional factors for an optimal assessment of railway effects on residential environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the main findings of a field survey conducted in the United Kingdom into the human response to vibration in residential environments. The main aim of this study was to derive exposure response relationships for annoyance due to vibration from environmental sources. The sources of vibration considered in this paper are railway and construction activity. Annoyance data were collected using questionnaires conducted face-to-face with residents in their own homes. Questionnaires were completed with residents exposed to railway induced vibration (N = 931) and vibration from the construction of a light rail system (N = 350). Measurements of vibration were conducted at internal and external positions from which estimates of 24-h vibration exposure were derived for 1073 of the case studies. Sixty different vibration exposure descriptors along with 6 different frequency weightings were assessed as potential predictors of annoyance. Of the exposure descriptors considered, none were found to be a better predictor of annoyance than any other. However, use of relevant frequency weightings was found to improve correlation between vibration exposure and annoyance. A unified exposure-response relationship could not be derived due to differences in response to the two sources so separate relationships are presented for each source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research problem refers to the power dynamics among agents regarding the preservation and use of railway assets in Arcoverde, located in the interior of Pernambuco, Brazil. The history of this city also permeates the history of Arcoverde Station. The Station was inaugurated in 1912 and deactivated in 1980, was occupied by a group of artists in 2001 with the purpose of holding cultural activities. These artists have reported precarious situation of the Station's infrastructure and externalizing the clash in which they are, since the monument, which was originally part of the extinct Federal Railway Network Anonymous Society - RFFSA, with the Law 11.483/2007, became part of the union and currently the Institute of Historic and Artistic, and Patrimony (IPHAN) and the City of Arcoverde, regarding its assignment. However, the artists do not want lose the space that they have been occupying since 2001. This research aimed to answer the following question: how are the power relations established among the agents in the culture field, about the preservation and use of Arcoverde Station? The theoretical and methodological perspective that based the understanding of these relations was Bourdieu's social field theory due to the fact that it provides necessary concepts to capture those power dynamics. It was concluded that IPHAN behaves according to the game rules, which are imposed by the State. On the other hand, the public administration of Arcoverde city and the Station of Culture Association do not accept the rules imposed by the State, defying the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A technique for analysing exhaust emission plumes from unmodified locomotives under real world conditions is described and applied to the task of characterizing plumes from railway trains servicing an Australian shipping port. The method utilizes the simultaneous measurement, downwind of the railway line, of the following pollutants; particle number, PM2.5 mass fraction, SO2, NO x and CO2, with the last of these being used as an indicator of fuel combustion. Emission factors are then derived, in terms of number of particles and mass of pollutant emitted per unit mass of fuel consumed. Particle number size distributions are also presented. The practical advantages of the method are discussed including the capacity to routinely collect emission factor data for passing trains and to thereby build up a comprehensive real world database for a wide range of pollutants. Samples from 56 train movements were collected, analyzed and presented. The quantitative results for emission factors are: EF(N) = (1.7 ± 1) × 1016 kg−1, EF(PM2.5) = (1.1 ± 0.5) g kg−1, EF(NO x ) = (28 ± 14) g kg−1, and EF(SO2) = (1.4 ± 0.4) g kg−1. The findings are compared with comparable previously published work. Statistically significant (p < α, α = 0.05) correlations within the group of locomotives sampled were found between the emission factors for particle number and both SO2 and NO x . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The railway vehicles are characterized by the fact that the wheel axle moves in the path of travel and self guidance in the contact forces between the tire rim and wheel tracks. Following wheels, besides the three common features they have and other land vehicles, namely support vehicle vertically, running about and propulsion, respectively braking railway vehicles in addition their specific function, namely self guidance that the two wires inside of rail. Being metallic wheels and also the rails that give the vehicle the ability to rail loadings much higher than other land vehicles. This capability, combined with that of self guidance, creates the possibility of forming convoys of vehicles (trains) heavy, giving wheel system - advantages of high capacity rail transport. The study and thorough understanding of the complex phenomena of the contact wheel - rail is actually the fundamental problem that ensures the development of railway vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lateral oscillation of railway vehicles is a major problem for narrow gauge railways or metric because reduced diameter bogie wheels. This problem can be reduced by changing the Prud'homme limit on vehicles and improving resistance tread lateral, being able to use the checkrails. Running with lateral oscillations road of the railway vehicles passenger and freight is a known problem for standard gauge railways. The lateral movement represents a particular problem which causes passengers discomfort and in major cases, the operating speed must be reduced. Whilst the railways and trains may suffer because of this. A possibility to resolve these problems should as reducing the Prud'homme limit, which defines the permissible lateral load, repeated exerted on the rail. This formula was used for vehicles and standard gauge railways, but many companies and suppliers of rolling stock have assumed that can be applied on narrow gauge lines. On the basis of existing information, without being made field tests or computer simulations, Prud'homme limit can be modified to standard gauge rail networks, but to verify the load lateral of this type of gauge must be made more investigations. Inevitably have emerged more simplistic assumptions, but is unlikely to significantly alter the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An integrated line planning and timetabling model is formulated with the objective of minimizing both user inconvenience and operational costs. User inconvenience is modeled as the total time passengers spend in a railway system, including waiting at origin and transfer stations. The model is solved using a cross-entropy metaheuristic. The line plan and timetable of Israel Railways is used as a benchmark. Using the same amount of resources, the average journey time of passengers is reduced by 20%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wine and the railroad are two key elements in the history of the Ribera del Duero in Valladolid. Over the years this area has undergone a series of social, economic and landscape significant changes due to the agrarian crisis of the mid-twentieth century. Yet the wine industry has established itself as the engine of the riverside economy through the production of quality wines and, more recently, the wine tourism which has allowed the development of a stronger economic fabric. Using this potential in wine and the railway line Valladolid-Ariza, a proposal for boosting tourism is suggested which will group all other heritage resources (landscape, cuisine, art and culture) located in the Valladolid section of the Ribera del Duero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the problem of modeling railway track substructure. The most commonly used methodology for designing the railway substructure cross section does not considerably differ from that proposed in the 1980s. For the bearing capacity of the subgrade, the currently used design methodology implicitly meets one objective: the stresses transmitted to the subgrade must be compatible with its bearing capacity. The bearing capacity depends on the qualities and thicknesses of the soils that compose the subgrade, from the formation layer to the lower layers. In addition, railway administrations have included additional recommendations based on their experience. During the last decade, finite-element models (FEM) have been shown to be a very useful tool for designing cross sections. These models are often very complex and require a very high computational time to be solved. To reduce this complexity and computational time while remaining faithful to the reality to be modeled, this paper proposes some recommendations to develop a parameterized numerical model in three dimensions within the elastic nonlinear range under the static load of a given railway section. To adequately reproduce the real behavior of materials (elastoplastic) and the contact surfaces between very different materials adequately, artifices to use the model in the elastic range are propsed. In addition, the goodness of this design is analyzed using multilayer numerical models. This model may be a very useful tool for analyzing the behavior of different types of railway cross sections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research reviews principles behind the dynamic response of rail supports, and introduces a method of analysis to find the maximum response in a realistic setting. Assuming a time-dependent, moving mass with massive wheels is essential, because the ratio of the moving mass to the rail mass is significant. However, the dynamic response of the track is not affected by dynamic properties of the train other than its unsprung mass, because the natural frequencies of the train suspension and track are significantly different. A numerical method is developed to model the dynamic response based on these principles, and applied to the Korean urban transit. The dynamic response includes multiple peaks with a large amplitude range, creating noise while the wheel passes the support. The dynamic impact factor (DIF) for the rail support depends mainly on the stiffness and damping of the rail support. The DIF for the rail moment is below the code value, whether this value is based on numerical analysis or on-site measurements. However, our numerical analysis results in a DIF for support settlement that is greater than the code value, if the damping is less than 3%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the goal is to primarily deal with the modeling of the railway traffic induced vibrations by using discrete computer models for analyzing related wave propagation problems with soil-structure interaction effects and mitigation of building responses by installation of wave barriers. Comprehensive parametric studies including the effects of localization and backfill material of trench barrier on the screening performance have been executed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The short sea shipping of goods parallel with Constanta's competitiveness can be an option of road and rail transport if supposing that the European Union's transport policy (e.g. Marco Polo program) is able to coordinate especially the short sea shipping with the inland waterway and overland transport. It is necessary that the short sea shipping of goods should be integrated into the TEN-network more effectively, or the „hub“ role of major ports should become more powerful. The development of the following decades in relation to Constanta should focus on this purpose so that the port can be an optional target for the Western European and Mediterranean ports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]