A Remotely Controlled Onboard Measurement System for Optimization of Energy Consumption of Electrical Trains

Reduction in energy consumption in electrical railway traction systems has become a vital need. The effort spent in providing better quality services implies increasing speed and, therefore, an increase in energy consumption. Various techniques are usually adopted to improve train performances. They span from modifying the vehicle structure to improving the motor. In this paper, a different way to reduce power absorption is presented, which is based on an appropriate interpretation of the traction diagram, along with the absorption curves. Measurement data are available by means of an onboard monitoring system that measures all the electromechanical quantities of the train course and sends them through a network connection to a remote control station. The evaluation of measurement uncertainty, the procedure to obtain the optimized protocol for train operation, and the experimental data obtained when the optimized protocol is applied are also presented.