Railway Capacity Model and Decision Support Process for Strategic Capacity Planning

The demand for railway transportation is expected to increase significantly worldwide and railway agencies are looking for better tools to allocate their capital investments in capacity planning in the best possible way. A capacity model has been developed to evaluate the network capacity of a conventional railway system with predominantly passenger trains. A capacity planning process is presented to help planners enumerate possible expansion options and to determine the optimal network investment plan for meeting future demand. Use of this capacity evaluation tool and capacity planning process will help railway agencies provide satisfactory service to their customers and pleasing returns on shareholder investments.