Development of a synchronous railway simulation model and dynamic control of shunting yards.

Permanent optimisation of infrastructure and operations are important to strengthen the competitiveness of railways as a mode of transport. For the solution of ever more complex problems in dynamic systems like railways, simulation has been adopted as a reliable method. Investment decisions in railway infrastructure, having very long life cycles, have to be taken very carefully, as they involve long planning periods and high costs. Simulation tools available nowadays cannot cope with analyses of shunting yards with adequate set-up time and costs. According to these facts, in the preceding research project SimShunt I an innovative simulation model structure has been developed which is fairly easy to handle and possible to use for different yards with short set up times, without the planning of shunting movements (synchronous railway-simulation). A combined simulation and optimization approach is used.