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Civil-Comp Proceedings
ISSN 1759-3433
CCP: 104
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON RAILWAY TECHNOLOGY: RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE
Edited by: J. Pombo
Paper 291

A Methodology for Comparing and Harmonizing Railway Operating Processes

S. Hoeppner and U.A. Weidmann

Institute for Transport Planning and Systems (IVT), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland

Full Bibliographic Reference for this paper
S. Hoeppner, U.A. Weidmann, "A Methodology for Comparing and Harmonizing Railway Operating Processes", in J. Pombo, (Editor), "Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Railway Technology: Research, Development and Maintenance", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 291, 2014. doi:10.4203/ccp.104.291
Keywords: railway operations, interoperability, rulebook, code of operating rules, harmonization, comparing, railway operating processes.

Summary
This paper presents a proposed methodology for analysing, comparing and harmonizing technical regulations in railway operations. The methodology has been developed to support the European Union's effort to create a fully interoperable railway network. Railway operations are strictly controlled for safety reasons. These controls are presented in rulebooks that set forth specific regulations for planning, operating and post-processing train trips. Rulebooks have been developed over time since the beginning of railways. In most cases they are developed for one specific railway and are often very country-specific. Furthermore, there is no international glossary with a comprehensive collection of railway rulebook terms. These factors mean that railway rulebooks have different structures, contents and language, which makes comparison very labour-intensive. The proposed methodology provides a structured approach for analysing technical regulations with the ultimate objective of helping develop harmonized rules that can be used throughout Europe. This paper describes the proposed five-step methodology and presents an example application.

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