Extending UIC 406-based capacity analysis – New approaches for railway nodes and network effects

Railway capacity planning aims to determine the amount of traffic that can be operated on a given infrastructure. The timetable compression method described in UIC Code 406 has become one of the standard tools in this area. Motivated by the Swedish Transportation Administration's timetable independent adaptation of the methodology and its need for extension we explore how the compression method can be applied to evaluate the capacity of the underlying infrastructure for strategic planning rather than the occupation ratio of a specific timetable. By performing ensemble averaging of scheduled train sequences we abstract from a single timetable concept and perform a distributional analysis of timetable utilization. To mitigate decomposition-induced underestimation of network effects the compression area is extended and approaches to include interdependencies between stations and lines are investigated. The methodology is applied for capacity assessment of railway stations and line segments in a case study based on the Swedish Southern Main Line rail corridor.