An Evaluation of Freight Train Energy Saving Potential Using Onboard Monitoring Data

This paper presents a proposed methodology for evaluating the potential energy savings available using energy-efficient driving strategies for rail freight transport. While railway transport is already very energy efficient there is still potential to reduce energy consumption thus reducing environmental impacts and operating costs. It is especially interesting to consider freight rail for energy efficient driving because it has higher operational flexibility than passenger transport and it suffers from lower performance and lower priorities during operation. The proposed methodology uses speed profile and energy consumption data collected from onboard monitoring equipment to provide detailed information on train motion phases. The reconstructed speed profiles created using this data enable better specification of the operating conditions in the model calibration process thereby helping improve the quality of optimized driving profiles. The proposed method uses a simulation-based approach both for model calibration and for generating energy optimal driving profiles. The paper describes model development and applies the model to a numerical example with real monitored data from freight trains crossing Switzerland from Basel to Domodossola (Italy).

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AR030 Standing Committee on Railroad Operating Technologies.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • De Martinis, Valerio
  • Weidmann, Ulrich A
  • Nash, Andrew
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 15p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automatic vehicle monitoring; Calibration; Energy consumption; Evaluation; Freight trains; Simulation; Speed
• Geographic Terms: Basel (Switzerland); Domodossola (Italy)
• Subject Areas: Energy; Freight Transportation; Operations and Traffic Management; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01594439
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-2791
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 24 2016 10:48AM