The paper addresses the scheduled service network design problem for freight rail transportation. The proposed model integrates service selection and scheduling, car classification and blocking, train make up, and routing of time-dependent customer shipments, based on a cyclic three-layer space-time network representation of the associated operations and decisions, their relations and time dime...

Recent advances in guided ground transportation, fire test methods, and hazard analysis necessitate re-examination of requirements for fire safety. Several studies have indicated nearly random ability of current tests to predict actual fire behavior. A comparison of the approaches used in the United States, Germany, and France is presented. With the strengths and weaknesses of current methods f...

The main idea of this research is to understand and evaluate the working conditions subjected to the rolling stockers of the Islamic republic of Iran railway to reduce the accidents and expenses in order to increase the productivity of the Iranian railway Industry. The problems due to productivity, job satisfaction and work safety have direct relation with the working design. A well-designed wo...

In 1882, Sir Thomas Hadfield patented an alloy with quite remarkable properties. Its composition was Fe-1.3%C-13%Mn and it was the toughest alloy known! The claim has stuck for the century since then and the alloy is now used universally for the “frog” in railway crossings in countries such as Canada where heavy loads are moved by rail using high axle loading. In fact, the alloy is very soft wh...

In this paper we present the concept for reliable vehicle-autarkic collision detection developed for a Rail Collision Avoidance System (RCAS) that is based on direct train-to-train communication. Similar to existing systems in air and maritime transport, the RCAS approach allows vehicle-autarkic detection of imminent collisions. Designed as a safety overlay system, it shall warn and advise trai...

This paper investigates the impacts of and incentives towards vertical integration or separation between an infrastructure manager and a network operator when downstream services may require the access to multiple networks. We show that returns-to-scale and the intensity of competition in the final markets are key to understanding the impact of vertical integration in this context. We also disc...

The state of California is expected to have significant population growth in the next half-century resulting in additional passenger transportation demand. Planning for a high-speed rail system connecting San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento as well as many population centers between is now underway. The considerable investment in California high-speed rail has been debated for...

A station closure is an abnormal operational situation in which the entrances or exits of a rail transit station have to be closed for some time due to an unexpected incident. A novel approach is developed to estimate the impacts of the alternative station closure scenarios on both passenger behavioral choices at the individual level and passenger demand at the disaggregate level in a rail tran...