Development of methodology for determining a-parameters of an asymmetric rail line

The article considers the methodology of forming the matrix of A-parameters of a rail line, represented by a multi-pole equivalent circuit. It is shown that when using a four-pole equivalent circuit of a rail line in case of violation of the equipotentiality of the circuit, it is impossible to take into account the flow of current along bypass paths, along the earth path, and the influence of adjacent track circuits. A multi-pole equivalent circuit of a rail line is represented as a 2x4 pole, in the rail lines of which self-induction EMF sources are included, and an earth path is used as the second wire. An equivalent multi-pole of equivalent circuit is represented by two groups of poles – at the input and output of the rail line, including one common (ground). The parameters of all elements of the equivalent multi-pole circuit are presented in the form of matrices, which makes it possible to analyze the state of the rail lines when changing the primary parameters of the rail multi-pole in a wide range. Using Kirchhoff's laws and solving a system of ordinary differential equations, the A-parameters of a rail multi-pole are obtained.

Optimization Model for Rail Line Crossover Design Considering the Cost of Delay

In this study, we introduce a method to optimally select the crossover locations of an independent rail line from a set of possible crossover locations considering a fixed number of crossovers that must be used in the design. This optimal selection aims to minimize the cost of passenger delay. Previous research showed that including passenger delay in the decision of rail design choices could be beneficial from economic and societal perspectives. However, those studies were only able to evaluate a few alternatives, because the degraded schedules had to be determined manually. In this research, we introduced an integer nonlinear model to find the best crossover design. We further developed an algorithm to evaluate a set of crossovers and determine the cost of delays for all segments on a rail line given a set of potential disruptions. The monetized cost of passenger delays was used to analyze the tradeoff between the unreliability costs emerging from the delay of passengers in the case of disruptions, and the total number of required crossovers. Our model was applied on a light rail line in Bergen (Norway) resulting in 10% reduction in relation to passenger delays without increasing the number of crossovers; thus, ensuring that there were no additional costs.

Theorizing nation-building through high-speed rail development: Hegemony and space in the Basque Country, Spain

Despite a variegated body of academic work on nation-building and rail infrastructures, attention to the relationship between nation-building and wider processes of economic and political restructuring and an explicit and theoretically robust consideration of space have been largely missing. This paper seeks to address both limitations by advancing a spatially sensitive conceptualization of how rail infrastructures may be used as a tool for nation-building in contemporary capitalist societies. Particularly, I draw on Jessop's strategic-relational approach to the state and on theoretical contributions on the spatiality of social relations to propose the synthetic notion of ‘spatial hegemonic vision’ to explain the legitimacy and substantive coherence of state action, argue for the inherent spatiality of nation-building projects, and facilitate a theoretically robust and nuanced understanding of such spatiality. I further distinguish between political economic and cultural dimensions in nation-building and discuss the materialization and imagining of specific configurations of territories, places, scales and networks involved in spatial hegemonic visions. This conceptualization is then applied to the development of a high-speed rail line in the Spanish region of the Basque Country. This line has been mobilized to advance two competing yet partially compatible spatial hegemonic visions, whilst becoming itself a site where they came into conflict. The paper concludes by examining the validity of the proposed conceptualization and discussing its applicability to other contemporary cases of nation-building through transport infrastructures.

Integrated Optimization of Line Planning, Timetabling and Rolling Stock Allocation for Urban Railway Lines

In order to improve train operation planning from the two perspectives of enterprise operating costs and passengers’ travel time, this paper proposes an integrated optimization model of three sub-problems, namely line planning, timetabling and rolling stock allocation for urban railway transit lines based on passengers’ travelling demands and the constraints of the urban rail line. The model features dwelling time at stations, turnaround operations at terminal stations, entering/exiting depot operations and an assignment for passengers’ travelling flow. We propose a solution method based on a metaheuristic method that simulates annealing to generate an optimal solution for the overall problem using MATLAB. Finally, we use the example of Xi’an metro line one to demonstrate the performance of the model.

Secundino Zuazo’s intermediate stations on the Caminreal–Zaragoza rail line: minor architectures for a paradigm shift

The firm Compañía del Ferrocarril Central de Aragón built 21 stations and halts along the 120 kilometres separating Caminreal and Zaragoza. The construction of this line in the 1930s marked a turning point in Spain’s railway history as it was an example of adapting technological solutions to the circumstances of the environment. Its most important novelty, however, was that great architects provided minor architectures, which served as an experimental laboratory of design mechanisms that would end up being identified with modernity in our country. The stations designed for this line by Secundino Zuazo (1887–1971) represented an opportunity for him to reflect on a modern language combining rationalist elements with local traditional ones but without ever losing sight of the appropriateness to the surroundings. The rational use of new materials, whose qualities differ greatly from traditional ones, determined a new architecture.

Unaccounted infrastructure needs for transit-oriented developments

Increasingly, U.S. cities are focusing on transit-oriented development (TOD) policies to expand the stock of higher-density, mixed-use development near public transit stations within the context of a transit corridor and, in most cases, a regional metropolis. A TOD zone relies on a regulatory and institutional environment, public and private participation and investment, and development incentives to create vibrant, people-oriented communities and mobility options and to support business development. TODs provide local governments with more tax revenues due to increased property values (and, as applicable, income and sales tax revenues), but most planning for TODs ignores the non-transit infrastructure costs of increasing development density. This study focused on determining the water and sewer infrastructure costs for TOD zones along a rail line in southeast Florida. The finding was that millions of dollars in funds are needed to meet those water and sewer needs and that few are currently planned as a part of community capital improvement programs.

Accurate and Lightweight RailNet for Real-Time Rail Line Detection

Railway transportation has always occupied an important position in daily life and social progress. In recent years, computer vision has made promising breakthroughs in intelligent transportation, providing new ideas for detecting rail lines. Yet the majority of rail line detection algorithms use traditional image processing to extract features, and their detection accuracy and instantaneity remain to be improved. This paper goes beyond the aforementioned limitations and proposes a rail line detection algorithm based on deep learning. First, an accurate and lightweight RailNet is designed, which takes full advantage of the powerful advanced semantic information extraction capabilities of deep convolutional neural networks to obtain high-level features of rail lines. The Segmentation Soul (SS) module is creatively added to the RailNet structure, which improves segmentation performance without any additional inference time. The Depth Wise Convolution (DWconv) is introduced in the RailNet to reduce the number of network parameters and eventually ensure real-time detection. Afterward, according to the binary segmentation maps of RailNet output, we propose the rail line fitting algorithm based on sliding window detection and apply the inverse perspective transformation. Thus the polynomial functions and curvature of the rail lines are calculated, and rail lines are identified in the original images. Furthermore, we collect a real-world rail lines dataset, named RAWRail. The proposed algorithm has been fully validated on the RAWRail dataset, running at 74 FPS, and the accuracy reaches 98.6%, which is superior to the current rail line detection algorithms and shows powerful potential in real applications.