Recommendations for Enhancing UIC Code 406 Method to Evaluate Railroad Infrastructure Capacity

The evaluation of the consumed railway line capacity by using UIC Code 406 is based on the route occupancy. It is analytically calculated by compressing the blocking time stairways of a timetable. In the description how to execute the UIC Code compression method many details are left open, or rather not mentioned. This means that different capacity calculations may vary in several details, not only causing different results, but also a decreasing significance. In the following, UIC Code 406 main contents are summarized. Although UIC Code 406 was especially developed for European railroads, capacity evaluations might also play a very important role in North America, e.g. for conforming the infrastructure characteristics considering the changes of traffic in the future. The difficulties that may arise from using the current issue of Code 406 are shown by several examples. After-wards, the disadvantages that are implicated by the compression method as a timetable-dependent examination to get significant and comparable results are discussed. It leads to the question, if these problems might be compensated by applying a method, which is independent of the original timetable. The further examination shows that this is possible, but compared with the problems caused by using the timetable-dependent method, the independent method also features a couple of other disadvantages. To achieve more significant examination results, some suggestions for UIC Code 406 further development and alternative evaluation methods are presented.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: DVD
  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 14p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 89th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01156946
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 10-0149
  • Files: TRIS, TRB
  • Created Date: May 24 2010 2:08PM