Australia: Intelligent planning to minimise rail disruption

[John Ashworth]

Intelligent planning to minimise disruption

Railway Gazette 03 July 2012

AUSTRALIA: RailCorp of New South Wales has awarded Siemens a contract to supply and support 'intuitive' technology designed to optimise timetabling to improve reliability and punctuality on the busy Sydney - Blacktown corridor.

'Our control system is capable of re-routing and prioritising trains automatically in the event of disruption', according to Paul Bennett, Siemens' Vice-President of Mobility & Logistics. 'This intuitive technology helps to predict the best outcome for RailCorp and its assets to effectively respond to any new situation.'

The system will verify new timetables offline, creating 'virtual disruption' to assess the potential impact. The same algorithms will also be used during real incidents to intelligently route and prioritise trains to optimise service recovery.

Deployment is due to be completed by early 2014.