Research on General Model of Railway Route Selection in CSM Areas Using the Sichuan-Tibet Railway and Other Typical Mountain Railways as Case Studies

In recent years, China's rail network has been expanding to western China. Most of western China is a complicated and steep mountainous area with complex terrain and a harsh natural environment. Many engineering geological problems and unfavorable geological hazards have been encountered in railway construction in this area. Railway route selection in complex and steep mountainous (CSM) areas has become one of the fundamental issues in railway design. In view of the existing literature, this paper is aimed to summarize the characteristics and difficulties of railway route selection in CSM areas. In view of the low efficiency of railway route selection in CSM areas, a set of general models for railway route selection in CSM areas is established in the present study. A new multifactor interactive matrix dynamic weight approach is proposed in this model, and the corresponding evaluation index system is then developed. This methodology has been successfully applied in two typical CSM railway route selection cases, which proves the validity and applicability of this novel approach. This scrutiny provides a newly solid reference for the route selection method of the railway in CSM areas and gives a new direction for the evaluation and decision-making of other complex system engineering problems.