A railway network may contain various kinds of track configurations. Some sections of tracks can be approached by traffic from two or more directions and there will be dispute as to the assignments of right of way. A traffic conflict occurs when two or more trains are approaching the same section of track, which is termed a conflict area, and they need to alter their progress to avoid collision. If the timetable is fully observed, there should not be any conflicts. However, when a train has been delayed for some reason, it may approach a conflict area so late that the progress of other train(s) near the conflict area is affected. Delays will then be inflicted on the trains involved as a result of conflict. Current practices to assign the right of way at conflict areas usually achieve an orderly and safe passage of the trains, but do not attempt to reduce the delays imposed on the trains. As the demands on the quality of railway services are always rising, any causes of delays should be avoided or at least the delays minimised. This thesis describes the development of a delay-optimised traffic controller which resolves the conflicts in a railway network by producing a policy of right-of-way assignments with minimum total weighted delay imposed on the trains. Dynamic programming is employed to conduct the optimisation process. In order to evaluate the costs during optimisation, an event-based traffic flow model is used to simulate the consequences of certain assignments of right-of-way. Various tests have been carried out to assess the performance of the controller under different traffic conditions. It has been shown that the policies produced by the controller inflict about 10 % less total weighted delays on the trains when compared with a commonly used practice, first come-first served. Hence, while the controller can produce policies with minimal delays imposed on the trains, first come-first served is in fact a reasonable means to deal with a single converging junction. Furthermore, the controller is capable of producing the optimal policies for most conflicts within 2-3 seconds so that it can be used in real-time applications.

The focus on rail transportation has shifted in recent years to be a viable alternative to road based means of travel and freight distribution. With a finite stockpile of the world's natural hydrocarbon based fuels and ever increasing road congestion, rail research has become a prime topic of late. In this thesis the focus has been on the wheel/rail contact and the measurement of rail head friction. The initial project was the development of an alternative technique to measure railhead friction. Adhesion loss is a major problem on railways around the world and is common during the autumn, at times for no obvious reason. Currently there are hand-pushed Tribometers which are used by rail networks to periodically measure and record friction on their rails. These devices however, are large bulky items and due to their design can only measure friction over a relatively large distance. However, most adhesion loss problems are caused by localised phenomena. A pendulum tester was chosen as a potentially viable alternative to the Tribometer as it could measure over shorter lengths of track (i. e. 13 cm compared to 3 in as in the case of the Salient Systems Tribometer). The pendulum is also relatively small and hence is convenient to transport. After a series of laboratory and field based tests the pendulum has been shown to match very well with Tribometer and twin-disc data. Friction modifiers are commonly used on railways around the world and are promoted to have many benefits such as reduced fuel consumption, reduced wear and damage to wheels and rails and reductions in operating noise. These products have been adopted in many different countries. It was noticed in the literature that very little study had been done on how the performance of these products is affected by varying atmospheric conditions or levels of railhead contamination. Another aspect of this thesis has been the measurement of one of the leading brands of top of rail friction modifier using a pin-on-disc tester with attached atmospheric chamber. It was found that humidity and the presence of iron oxide have a far greater effect on the friction modifier than temperature. In the final two chapters a study was carried out to measure the performance of traction enhancing products. These are intended to restore traction in cases of adhesion loss from, for example, leaves on the line. It is critical that correct levels of adhesion/traction are maintained for braking and acceleration purposes. A twin-disc tester was used in this study and a technique for forming a crushed leaf layer on the discs was developed. The traction enhancers consist of sand particles of uniform size suspended in a water based gel. There were four products tested each using a different sand grain size. The first series of tests measured the performance of each product in terms of traction compared to that of a leaf layer alone. It was found that the smaller particles showed the best performance by restoring the traction to uncontaminated levels in the shortest time. The second series of tests focused on the impact these products had on wheel and rail wear and track signalling. Wear was also measured in terms of mass lost from the discs. An A. C. circuit operating at 2 kHz was used to simulate a T121 track circuit which is used in the UK as part of the signalling system. Impedance caused by each product was measured and compared to impedance levels for uncontaminated discs. It was found that the impedance of a leaf layer plus the product was lower than the impedance of the leaf layer alone. There also seemed to be no correlation between particle size and impedance. The impedance levels seen with the products were not deemed to be enough to cause a significant issue to the signalling system.

The first chapter of this thesis draws on newly collected archival data from colonial India to estimate the impact of India's vast railroad network on real income there from 1870 to 1930. Guided by four predictions from a general equilibrium trade model I find that railroads: (1) reduced trade costs and interregional price gaps; (2) expanded interregional and international trade; (3), raised real income levels (but harmed neighbouring regions without railroad access); and (4), that a sufficient statistic for the impact of railroads on welfare in the model accounts for virtually all of the estimated reduced-form impact of railroads on real income. The second chapter examines the role that openness to trade, as brought about by railroads in colonial India, affected the extent to which real incomes in the agricultural sector were exposed to variation in rainfall (an input to agricultural production). This relationship is theoretically ambiguous, but I find strong empirical support for trade openness reducing the exposure of real income to rainfall (prices become less responsive and nominal incomes more responsive to local rainfall, but real incomes are on net less responsive). I find analogous effects on mortality rates, implying that the responsiveness of consumption to rainfall may have fallen as well. These results suggest that openness can reduce real income volatility, and that railroads did much to rid India of famine. The final chapter extends the above investigation of the role that weather fluctuations play in Indian citizen's lives into the modern period, from 1957-2000. A first set of results document large effects of excess temperature and surfeit rainfall on both adult and infant mortality - further, these effects are only present in the growing periods of the year and are entirely absent among urban citizens. A second set of results documents an analogous pattern of deleterious effects of adverse weather on agricultural yields, wages and prices.

Predicted increasing demand for long-distance travel raises the potential for considerable capacity impacts on the existing transport network. HS2, a proposed high speed rail (HSR) line in Britain bypassing existing routes, is being advanced by Government and might impact on mode choice and planned travel behaviour. Given predicted increasing long-distance travel demand, improving understanding of the underlying attitudinal, perceptual and behavioural issues is important. This thesis investigates attitudes to long-distance travel, perceptions of HSR, and willingness-to-pay for travel time reductions by determining the effects of social characteristics. Following focus groups to examine the wider domain of long-distance travel and mode choice, a questionnaire was developed to measure attitudes to long-distance travel and perceptions of HSR. A Principal Components Analysis of 46 travel-related attitude items generated six attitude factors, relating to; travel security, unsustainable transport improvements, perceived prestige of HSR, negative attitudes to HSR, importance of travel comfort, and travel time use. Attitudes differed by demographics and travel behaviour, implying focus is needed on younger age groups to attract travellers to HSR unless development timescales can be reduced. Proximity to a proposed HS2 station had no impact on attitudes, although proximity to the route was predictive of negative attitudes (the only aspect that was a predictor of negative attitudes to HSR). Factors such as cost, the environment, comfort and convenience are discussed in light of theories of attitudes, cognitive and affective reasoning and mode choice. Willingness-to-pay for travel time savings under two trip scenarios revealed a valuation broadly similar to that used in the HS2 economic case for commuters and leisure trips, but substantially lower than that used for business travel.

The primary goals of the empirical work outlined in this thesis were to explore the utility of preview and predictive information in train driving and develop a substantive simulated task environment (micro-world) for enhancing the systematic study of rail human factors issues. To achieve these goals, the specific domain features and informational requirements of the domain were required. The first phase of this research was to derive a multi-layer task and domain analysis framework that could extract the implicit and intuitive knowledge of the task from train drivers and subject matter experts. This produced the data required for the micro-world designing process, and additionally, identified two train driving task types (traditional, modern). The second phase used these data and a comprehensive evaluation of existing train information displays to design and develop the train micro-world ATREIDES. ATREIDES was employed in the third phase of this research to systematically study the design and utility of preview and predictive information. The features studied included information for braking, pursuit enhancing movement zones, dynamic preview, and estimated time of arrival (ETA) data. Having established The empirical studies followed an iterative process that compared the design of these features according to each task type, serving to answer the overarching research question, how can drivers be given the best information? A within-individual design was used to conduct this research. In general, the results indicated very little utility for exclusive enhanced information under the traditional train-driving task. However, under certain features, performance under the pursuit task was enhanced dramatically. These findings are discussed in relation to the two train driving tasks, and more generally, applied to collision avoidance analogues.

No description available.

Amongst the reforms altering the European railway industry in the last two decades, the new provisions on rail (or transport) regulators’ renovated powers and independence have been little analysed by the literature. This study aims to quantitatively determine the impact of economic regulation on European railways efficiency and qualitatively identify the role of rail regulators across Europe. The quantitative analysis considers a sample of European railway systems for the period 2002-2010, and measures economic regulation by employing a purposely developed index rather than dummy variables, as widely utilised by previous literature. The findings differ depending on the way outputs are measured, with regulation producing cost reductions either when combined with vertical separation or when accompanied by competition. However, the combined impact of vertical separation and average levels of regulation only reduces costs when train density is below the sample mean. The qualitative analysis is based on the design of a questionnaire on rail regulation, collecting first-hand evidence from 20 regulators, infrastructure managers and railway operators across Europe. The questions take into account the findings of a specific literature review on a set of ideal characteristics germane to regulators in railways and comparable industries. Regulators seem to have achieved the necessary requirements in order to effectively operate. Independence is guaranteed on paper and in action, high levels of transparency render regulators accountable, and when intervention is requested, their responses appear prompt. On the other hand, the approval of track access charging schemes, together with the monitoring of the efficiency and quality of the infrastructure managers’ performances, only at times fully involves the regulators. Overall, from both analyses a complex scenario emerges, wherein strong economic regulation produces greater benefits in lightly dense contexts and when accompanied by vertical separation and effective competition.

This thesis addresses safety in the railway industry with a focus on safety culture, defined by the United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive as ‘the behavioural aspects (i.e. what people do) and the situational aspects of the company (i.e. what the organisation has)’. Current safety management systems do not appropriately incorporate safety culture. This has the potential to cause serious harm to human life. As the definition implies, safety culture is not easily measured or quantified. It involves factors that influence human behavior in safety critical and technology dense environments such as the railway environment. Furthermore, as railways become more advanced in their operational capabilities and integrated across European countries, safety culture will become increasingly important. Therefore, safety culture should be a key component of an organisation’s safety management system. However, research to date has shown its integration to be piecemeal. To address this problem, this thesis specifies an enhanced safety case that uses safety culture as an integral part of the process. This provides an improved approach towards safety management. The key findings from this research show that railways are inherently safe. This is primarily due to the regulations across technical and operational disciplines. Regulations and procedures typically relate to the three possible operational states that can occur: normal, degraded and emergency. An example of a degraded operational state includes a signal failure where a train driver may be given the permission to proceed at caution. The variability between the states can affect a humans understanding of the various technical interfaces and their emergent properties. This in turn can affect the type of behaviour exhibited by a driver, signaller, controller or maintainer. System architecture is therefore an essential tool to identify functional and physical relationships and can be used as a training tool. Training was found to be an effective measure to practically test and evaluate safety culture behaviours. Specifically, the use of a simulated environment has shown to be efficient for learning and training exercises and can be used to improve an organisations safety management system. The safety case derived in this thesis is therefore, driven by the safety management system and is optimised by an understanding of the particular environment and the user interfaces. The process of integrating safety culture is shown through the improved and derived safety assessment process developed in the thesis.

Since 1980, seven new light rail systems have been built in England at a cost of £2.3 billions (National Audit Office, 2004). The Social Exclusion Unit (2003) promoted social inclusion as a key UK Government policy and it is now a specific focus for transport policy. The Passenger Transport Executive Group (2005) is advocating investment in further light rail systems. Therefore, this thesis seeks to identify from the available evidence the impacts on social inclusion in those communities served by the new light rail systems in English cities. Firstly, the context of light rail light rail and extent of social exclusion in England is explored. Then, following a review of existing literature, including published before and after studies, the study identifies and reviews the issues around the relationship between transport and social inclusion and the impacts of light rail schemes by reference to five case studies opened 1992-2004: Manchester, Sheffield, West Midlands, Croydon and Nottingham. The hypothesis is that there is a positive relationship between these schemes and improved social inclusion. Can this be demonstrated from the evidence Comparison is made between 'on-line' wards where light rail is located and control areas that do not have light rail schemes. The study compares indicators of absolute and relative socio-economic changes within defined corridors of each scheme at a ward level using the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2000 car ownership and travel-to-work data from the Census and employment levels using NOMIS data for the period, and other published sources. Despite the accumulating literature asserting the positive contribution of light rail systems to social inclusion in England, from the evidence and analysis of these data the study finds little substantive evidence in support of this, with implications for policy and investment decisions.

No description available.