Abstract :
The drive for improved railway performance is a fundamental commitment of both UK Government and the railway industry. This drive is apparent in many of the initiatives involving collaboration, competition, investment, incentives and metrics. However, the experience of the last few years highlights the complexity of assessing train performance within a dynamic system, and demonstrates that performance forecasts can carry a significant margin of uncertainty. A further challenge for the industry is the need to effectively manage the often conflicting performance requirements of capacity, reliability and journey time at lowest life cycle cost, whilst maintaining acceptable levels of safety. An important contribution to meeting the performance challenge is the development and application of modelling techniques to improve the quantitative understanding of performance, and the complex system relationships that exist. Such understanding is supporting better decision-making at both strategic and tactical levels. Modelling techniques also enable the setting of meaningful performance related system requirements, thus ensuring that performance gets ´designed-in´ from the outset. Looking forward, it is suggested that advances in system dynamics modelling might provide a means for better understanding of the complex interactions and trade-offs that characterise the railway system.
