How do Delays Along the Way Influence Delays to Final Destination?

Abstract:In daily operation, railway traffic always deviates from the planned schedule to a certain extent. Initial disturbances of trains at some point along the line may cause a whole cascade of delays over the entire network. Average delay analysis approach indicated that the effect of delays along the way to the final destination is random, which is dependent on the traffic conditions. Poor performance up to 7 minutes delay, subsequently higher influence to the final destination were seen from trains 453 and 442 for routes from Trondheim and Steinkjer respectively. The better performance of trains from Trondheim at the final destination, confirmed that the influence of delays along the way to the final destination is affected by the train line or route. Route conflicts or disturbance often occur at busy stations and junctions, which may affect the delays of train arrivals and departures at the intermediate stations and subsequently arrivals at the final destination. The correlation analysis revealed that the influence is highly dependent on the distance of highly utilized (bottleneck station) from the destination. There was a considerable variability associated with train delays during the different time attributes more pronounced in the case heterogeneity. Exaggerated cumulative delays were observed on Tuesday during the third week of the study period. Conflicts, passenger alighting and boarding during morning and afternoon peak hours resulted in relatively larger delays at individual stations and subsequently final destination. Delays at long the way, which are not reported as poor performance according to Norwegian punctuality norm, have greater socio-economic impact. At highly utilized stations typically Stjørdal and Hell the values of delays were found to be up to twice the values at the final destination