A simulation-based approach for estimating the commercial capacity of railways

Rail transport is expected to play a remarkable role for a sustainable mobility in Europe. This paper presents an approach for estimating the commercial capacity of railways. The commercial capacity is intended as the number of possible paths in a defined time window on a rail line, or part of it, considering a fixed path mix, with market-oriented quality. The capacity management is one of the most important tasks of railway Infrastructure Managers. The proposed simulation-based approach relies on the use of an optimizer and a simulator. The study has been developed for the rail line Verona-Brennero, located in the Italian part of the European Corridor Hamburg-Napoli. Computational results allowed to estimate the commercial capacity differences between the whole line and three important line sections within it. Other computational experiments showed the relevant estimated increase in commercial capacity that a reduction in time spacing between trains could imply.