SimShunt Shunting Yard Simulation

Rail freight transport is an efficient and environmentally friendly mode of transport which has to be planned and coordinated carefully. Therefore modern simulation tools increasingly gain importance in planning and analysing railway infrastructure. Wagonload traffic is one of the main products of rail freight transport. It is characterized by its big diversity of customers and planning on individual wagon level. Existing simulation tools are especially designed for developing infrastructure on an operational level. These models are of high complexity and granularity and therefore require comprehensive input data which ends up in long project lead times. As a result it is not possible to quickly run node simulations on a strategic level. But for planning reasons, it is much more important to run strategic simulations of railway infrastructure because of considering system wide impacts on wagonload traffic, resulting from the optimization of single nodes. As a matter of fact, there is actually no existing tool allowing for manageable, quick and meaningful analysis of shunting nodes. The aim of the SimShunt project is to develop a quick, reliable and manageable simulation tool for planning and optimizing shunting nodes. Railway infrastructure planning is characterized by the prevailing contradiction of maximum throughput and minimum costs of infrastructure. Therefore SimShunt is intended to support decision makers in finding the best equilibrium of capacity and investment costs and costs for maintenance. The underlying project consortium already developed a simulation tool for container terminals as intermodal transhipment nodes. The so called SimConT tool was developed for strategic and tactical simulation of inland terminal infrastructure and operations. By means of simulation the risk of bad investments and stranded costs when planning and (re)building the infrastructure and capacity of terminals can be minimized. As SimConT allows for a project lead time of only a few weeks in the best case, this tool is the benchmark for the development of the SimShunt simulation. The existing experience and know how of the project consortium builds the basis for developing a comprehensive and meaningful simulation tool tailored to the special needs of shunting nodes.