Evaluation of robustness indicators using railway operation simulation

Abstract

The classical way of evaluating the robustness of railway timetables is the use of microscopic simulation. This is precise and offers a high level of detail, but it also requires a high amount of work. The alternative is to use robustness indicators that directly or indirectly indicate the robustness of a railway system. However, the semantics of these are mainly unknown and indicators are therefore best for comparison of alternatives. The paper therefore reviews and evaluates different robustness indicators against a microscopic simulation. This evaluation show that the indicators compare well to the microscopic simulation and are, to some extent, able to predict the outcome of the simulation. © 2014 WIT Press.