Dynamic Analysis of Steering Bogies

Running times of high-speed rolling stock can be reduced by increasing running speed on curved portions of the track. During curving, flange contact causes large lateral force, high frequency noises, flange wears and wheel load fluctuation at transition curves. To avoid derailment and hunting, and to improve ride comfort, i.e., to improve the curving performances at high speed, forced/active steering bogie design is studied in this chapter. The actively steered bogie is able to negotiate cant excess and deficiency. The bogie performance is studied on flexible irregular track with various levels of cant and wheel wear. The bogie and coach assembly models are developed in Adams VI-Rail software. This design can achieve operating speed up to 360 km/h on standard gauge ballasted track with 150mm super-elevation, 4km turning radius and 460m clothoid type entry curve design. The key features of the designed bogie are the graded circular wheel profiles, air-spring secondary suspension, chevron springs in the primary suspension, anti-yaw and lateral dampers, and the steering linkages.

Online Condition Monitoring of Traction Motor

Squirrel Cage Induction Motors (SCIMs) are major workhorse of Indian Railways. Continuous online condition monitoring of the SCIMs like Traction Motor (TM) are essential to prevent unnecessary stoppage time in case of a complete failure. Before a complete failure, the TMs generally develop incipient or weak faults. Weak faults have minute influence on the motor performance but eventually leads to complete failure of the motor. If these weak faults are identified at the earliest then, a scheduled maintenance can be planned which will prevent any unplanned stoppage. The signals used for SCIM fault detection are motor current, voltage, vibration, temperature, voltage induced in search coil, etc. The most popular fault detection technology is based on Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA). MCSA based online and onboard TM condition monitoring system can be very useful for Indian railways to reduce the cost of operation and unplanned delay by shifting from unnecessary scheduled maintenance to condition-based maintenance of TM and other auxiliary SCIMs.

Analyzing Intercity Modal Choice and Competition Between High Speed Rail (HSR) and Other Transport Modes in Indian Context

In this study, a theoretical framework is developed in order to assess the viability of transport infrastructure investment in the form of High Speed Rail (HSR) by assessing, the mode choice behaviour of the passengers and the strategies of the operators, in the hypothetical scenario. Discrete choice modelling (DCM) integrated with a game theoretic approach is used to model this dynamic market scenario. DCM is incorporated to predict the mode choice behaviour of the passengers in the new scenario and the change in the existing market equilibrium and strategies of the operators due to the entry of the new mode is analysed using the game theoretic approach. The outcome of this market game will describe the strategies for operators corresponding to Nash equilibrium. In conclusion, the impact of introduction of HSR is assessed in terms of social welfare by analysing the mode choice behaviour and strategic decision making of the operators, thus reflecting on the economic viability of the transport infrastructure investment.

Integrated Traffic Management using Data from Traffic, Asset Conditions, Energy and Emissions

The traffic management is the core of the railway operations control technology. It receives the timetable information as a target definition and advises the command control and signaling systems to execute the rail traffic. Hence the traffic management system (TMS) has to take into account many sources of requests towards the traffic operation e.g. coming from the maintenance planning or the power supply system and to optimize the operation with respect to many criteria as e.g. punctuality, energy consumption, capacity and infrastructure wear. This chapter shows the sources of information for the TMS as well the resulting criteria. The final approach to configure a specific has to be done with respect to a specific application.

Railway Operations Models

This chapter is intended as an exposure to OR based methods, particularly the analytical approach to modelling railway operations. An overview of several planned operations in railway transportation is provided in an academic context. Some of the applications and the associated models are applied in realistic settings in the transportation industry, and also have demonstrated evidence of acceptance over a long number of years. Primary coverage is on transportation scheduling and the concise discussions are on planning phases, various operations that can be deterministically modeled and analysed, model development, few exercises and real-world stories, wherever appropriate. All sections are adequately provided with the list of references and an interested reader can benefit from a conceptual understanding to model development and to implement and deploy, under some prior knowledge on the basics and programming experience.

Welfare Economic Principles of (Urban) Rail Network Pricing

The purpose of this chapter is to rectify the at best unprofessional intermingling of objectives and constraints and present a proper theory of first-best and second-best pricing in urban rail networks. First, in view of the flaws of both Dupuit's – though nevertheless ingenious idea of – consumer surplus as well its cannibalized version found in most of today's economics textbooks, a proper definition of economic welfare resting on Hicks'sian variations instead is provided. It is used to derive efficient pricing rules that are subsequently applied to specific questions arising from running an urban railway network such as overcrowding, short-run versus long-run capacity or competing modes of transport like the private motor car. At the same time, another look is taken at economic costs, and in particular economic marginal costs, differing from commercial or accounting costs. Among other things, it is shown that even with commercial marginal costs being constant first-best pricing might not necessarily be incompatible with a zero-profit budget.

Railway Investment Appraisal Techniques

Railway transport involves the expenditure of resources on a combination of investment in capital items (e.g. stations, tracks, equipment) and/or in operations (e.g. subsidies). Concerning the fact that there are limited amounts of resources, it is necessary to maximize the returns obtained from the investments of those resources. The best way to do this is to ensure that the resources will be allocated on those projects that maximize their return. Railway appraisals therefore represent a way of thinking about all the costs and benefits of different railway related spending projects in a systematic manner so that, the projects can be compared and investments made in those which are going to provide the maximum possible return on the investment. This chapter provides a review of the main analytical tools that should be used in the process of railway investments appraisal. Namely, a detailed description of discounting, Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) is covered by this chapter.

Steady State Modeling of Electric Railway Power Supply Systems for Planning and Operation Purposes

This chapter describes the different electric railway power supply systems and their main characteristics from the point of view of the power flow modeling and simulation. It considers the DC traction systems and also the AC ones, explaining the different elements embedded in the network and proposing steady state electrical models of each element. The basic methods for modeling the train behavior in terms of demanded/regenerated power are also detailed. Finally, the procedures to simulate the trains motion into the electrical network and how their motion and power demand affect to the electrical variables will be unraveled, explaining how to merge all the models in a system of equations.

Intelligent Transportation Systems

“Intelligent Transportation systems” is what everyone wants to know about, and about which very little is available as know-how. ITS technologies and monitoring systems are quite popular and reasonably well deployed in developed countries, particularly the roadways and airways. ITS holds a greater promise than ever before, as both availability of niche technologies and demand for more efficient transportation systems have increased multi-fold in recent years. Of late, there are huge railway projects all over the world that spans through several techniques, such as light / heavy rails, monorails etc. Apart from the social benefits that can be envisaged, these projects are genuine examples of public-private partnerships along with global business operations. Many of these projects demonstrate a classy trend of moving towards automation of operations of very large scales. Few agent architectures are discussed in brief in this chapter.

Alertness Monitoring System for Vehicle Drivers using Physiological Signals

The present chapter deals with the development of a robust real-time embedded system which can detect the level of drowsiness in automotive and locomotive drivers based on ocular images and speech signals of the driver. The system has been cross-validated using Electroencephalogram (EEG) as well as Psychomotor response tests. A ratio based on eyelid closure rates called PERcentage of eyelid CLOSure (PERCLOS) using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) is employed to determine the state of drowsiness. Besides, the voiced-to-unvoiced speech ratio has also been used. Source localization and synchronization of EEG signals have been employed for detection of various brain stages during various stages of fatigue and cross-validating the algorithms based in image and speech data. The synchronization has been represented in terms of a complex network and the parameters of the network have been used to trace the change in fatigue of sleep-deprived subjects. In addition, subjective feedback has also been obtained.