Computational & Technology Resources
an online resource for computational,
engineering & technology publications
Civil-Comp Proceedings
ISSN 1759-3433
CCP: 110
PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON RAILWAY TECHNOLOGY: RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE
Edited by: J. Pombo
Paper 293

Energy Optimisation for Subway Trains by Interactive Track Alignment Planning

M. Flurl, R. Morelos, R.-P. Mundani and E. Rank

Technische Universität München, Germany

Full Bibliographic Reference for this paper
M. Flurl, R. Morelos, R.-P. Mundani, E. Rank, "Energy Optimisation for Subway Trains by Interactive Track Alignment Planning", in J. Pombo, (Editor), "Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Railway Technology: Research, Development and Maintenance", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 293, 2016. doi:10.4203/ccp.110.293
Keywords: alignment modelling, energy consumption, trains, energy efficiency optimisation.

Summary
The basis for planning a subway tunnel is the so-called alignment model describing the specific course of the track. The alignment itself is one of the fundamental sources for a train's overall energy consumption in the operational phase, which in general lasts for many decades. Thus, even small changes to the alignment can have a major impact on the overall energy consumption. Currently, the alignment's influ-ence on the energy consumption is not, or only rudimentarily, considered in the planning of new subway tunnels.

Our approach, presented in this paper, aims to overcome this deficiency based on an autonomous energy simulation to support the engineer while planning the align-ment. This simulation calculates the changes in the energy consumption with every modification made by the planning engineer, in the background and in real time. Thus, this model allows a priori prediction of the energy consumption dur-ing the planning phase, in contrast to other existing approaches that only allow a posteriori calculations during the operational phase. Additionally, we will present ideas for energy optimisation, in particular, an automatic energy optimisation approach based on an ant colonisation algorithm.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £22)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the book description
purchase this book (price £85 +P&P)