INTRODUCTION TRANSPORTATION of people is increasing as our society grows and the demand for railway services that can provide high-speed and high-capacity transportation is becoming greater. The number of train rides taken in Japan in 2006 was 22,243 million, more than anywhere else in the world by some margin, making Japan one of the world’s leading railway nations. A major feature of railway ...

Progress of construction technology Japan has a relatively small proportion of lowland, consisting mainly of alluvial coastal plains. Railway construction started in the early Meiji Era (1868–1912) and since the construction technology was still immature, the first lines were built in level coastal areas. The rails were laid mostly on earth structures such as embankments and cuttings. Many rail...

Urban railway systems are increasingly relying on information and communications technologies (ICT). This evolution makes cybersecurity an important concern, in addition to the traditional focus on reliability, availability, maintainability and safety. In this paper, we examine two examples of cyberintensive systems in urban railway environments—a communications-based train control system, and ...

This article presents a mathematical model aimed at predicting wheel–rail contact vibration force arising from wheel profile irregularities. Prediction of vibrations caused by a passing train is a basic factor in environmental impact studies related to planning new railway lines. The prediction model is useful during the development of a project as it facilitates selection of the most suitable ...

In the United States, the freight railway industry is already running without much excess capacity. Hence, better planning and scheduling tools are needed to effectively manage the scarce resources, to cope with the rapidly increasing demand for railway transportation. The integration of freight train and passenger train scheduling and dispatching is an important railroad management task since ...

In this paper we present first analyses and results of a comprehensive measurement campaign investigating the propagation channel in case of direct (base station free) communication between railway vehicles. The measurements cover urban, suburban and rural environments along a multifaceted regional railway network in the south of Bavaria. Beside different operational conditions like front, rear...

Restructuring of European railway companies has resulted in creating new subjects within railway systems infrastructure managers (IM) on the one hand and railway operators (RO) on the other. In this paper we examine the efficiency and rank different business strategies of railway infrastructure managers using the combined AHP/DEA method. Different strategies include different number of paths al...

Railway and metro transport systems (RS) are becoming one of the popular choices of transportation among people, especially those who live in urban cities. Urbanization and increasing population due to rapid development of economy in many cities are leading to a bigger demand for urban rail transit. Despite being a popular variant of Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), it appears that the univers...

A study of community annoyance caused by exposures to railway noise was carried out in 18 areas along railway lines to accumulate social survey data and assess the relationship between railway noise levels and annoyance responses in Korea. Railway noise levels were measured with portable sound-level meters. Social surveys were administered to people living within 50 m of noise measurement sites...