An event-driven simulator for multi-line metro systems and its application to Santiago de Chile metropolitan rail network

Metros are the principal means of public transportation in many of the world’s cities, and continue to grow in the face of rising demand. Expanding metro infrastructure is costly, however, and at a certain point becomes unsustainable. When this occurs the only feasible solution is to improve the train’s management system by using either offline approaches, such as pre-programming schedules which use historic information, or online approaches which employ system status information obtained during operation. A new planning or control system, be it on or off line, requires prior testing that usually involves conducting simulations. This paper presents the design and implementation of an event-driven dynamic simulator for multi-line metro systems, and its practical application for studying different operating strategies. The simulator is based on object-oriented programming and is capable of interacting with Matlab programs written by the user to design and evaluate real-time control strategies. This article describes the model upon which the simulator is based, presents the user interface, and demonstrates how to use the simulator for operating strategies evaluation in the Santiago de Chile multi-line metropolitan rail network.