Simulation of Railway Lines with a Simplified Interlocking System

Abstract

This paper deals with railway lines with low traffic intensity where trains are operated under simplified conditions. Those conditions are stated in a regulation, and there is no interlocking system on the line. The whole railway operation is organized according to a regulation in cooperation with the train crew. For the calculation of the throughput, we can use analytic or simulation methods. On those lines there is a big problem with the common working methods because of special circumstances on each line, which are influencing the technological times and reliability of the calculation. The simplified conditions are the transforming of regular interlocking systems on the administrative level. Therefore, it is very complicated to use a common simulation model. Most of the simulation tools are not able to work with it. The motivation of this paper is to prove that modern simulation tools are usable for that specific condition as well. The simulation model was built in SW OpenTrack which is able to modify its functions to figure out each technological action to ensure the correct function of the model. This functionality is described in the paper in general and implemented on a case study.