STUDIES IN RAILROAD OPERATIONS AND ECONOMICS. VOLUME 4. THE IMPACT OF CLASSIFICATION YARD PERFORMANCE ON RAIL TRIP TIME RELIABILITY

Yard reliability emerges as a problem of central importance to overall movement reliability. Detailed studies of three yards suggest that 10 to 20% of all cars miss their most appropriate outbound train connections, although performance varies not only between yards, but between inbound-outbound train pairs at the same yard. It is possible to express the probability of making a connection as an increasing function of the time available to make the connection, since the extra time offsets both arrival delays and congestion delays. The greatest cause of delay, however, is the cancellation of outbound trains or blocks. Extraordinary delays caused by rips and no-bills appear to be a relatively small problem.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • See also Volume 3, PB-244 120, and Volume 5, PB-244 122.
• Corporate Authors:

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Transportation Systems Division
  Cambridge, MA  United States  02139

  Federal Railroad Administration

  Office of Policy and Program Development, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Reid, R M
  • O'Doherty, J D
  • Sussman, J M
  • Lang, A S
• Publication Date: 1972-6

Media Info

• Pagination: 72 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Economic factors; Freight cars; Freight forwarders; Freight trains; Freight transportation; Railroad terminals; Railroad transportation; Railroads; Reliability; Repairing; Traffic delays; Waybills; Yard operations
• Old TRIS Terms: Cargo transportation; Freight car repairs; Freight forwarding
• Subject Areas: Economics; Freight Transportation; Railroads; Terminals and Facilities;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00092229
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Technical Information Service
• Report/Paper Numbers: MIT-R72-39 Final Rpt., FRA/RPD-75/1.3
• Contract Numbers: DOT-FR-10006
• Files: NTIS, TRIS, USDOT
• Created Date: Oct 18 1976 12:00AM