Headway and signal information point positioning in ETCS (HESE)

Researchers: Hans Sipilä (project manager), Emil Jansson

Funding: Trafikverket (Swedish Transport Administration)

Implementation: 2021

The main purpose with this project is to develop a method/model aimed at supporting train capacity related assessments within or in connection with ETCS-projects, more specifically within pre-design phases of ETCS Level 2 (ETCS L2). With respect to the ETCS specifications, the model is intended to model braking curves and technical headway for a track section as realistically as possible. Technical headway is the (theoretical) minimum time that can exist between two consecutive trains at signal information locations without causing restrictive information for the subsequent train. The magnitude of this technical headway is governed by signal parameters, vertical track profile, track speeds and train parameters. These types of parameters should be input and easy to vary within reasonable limits. There may also be an approach where the signal information positions for a certain track setup can be varied automatically to provide a larger outcome space. Headway can also be evaluated with tools like RailSys (in which ETCS functionality is implemented), but to do it for a variation of setups is time consuming and demands relatively extensive manual handling. This project is designed as a pre study. The implementation is planned to be done with Python along with input data settings in an Excel-file or similar.