Reservkapacitet i tilldelningsprocessen (RIT) – Slutrapport

Reserve capacity in Railway capacity allocation. Each year railway undertakings (RUs) apply for capacity to run trains on the railway infrastructure. The infrastructure manager (IM) should make a complete timetable for all applications together with capacity restrictions when maintenance etc must be performed. In this process, referred to as the capacity allocation process, the IM should also schedule some reserve capacity for later use during the execution of the plan. The reserve capacity then competes with the applied capacity of the RUs, since it is only motivated to introduce reserve capacity where there is a capacity scarcity. If there is plenty of rest capacity (capacity that no one applied for in the yearly process), then there is no need for reserve capacity. Since reserve capacity competes with all other capacity applied for in the yearly capacity allocation process, the amount, location and lines where reserve capacity is introduced must be founded in fair and sound principles in order for the RUs in the yearly process to accept the costs taken to make room for the reserve capacity. This report addresses such models and methods for the Swedish capacity allocation process. The report in part summarizes in condensed form the two earlier reports that have been published, as well as reports some new material regarding process descriptions, data analyses of previous years’ timetables and interviews with three different RUs. The report also gives some recommendations to the Swedish IM Trafikverket about tools for representing reserve capacity, design of the process and how to allocate paths based on reserve capacity once capacity has been reserved. One key recommendation is that a new timetabling object should be introduced, called Capacity reservation, CR. A CR is a named (has identity) timetabling object that can be used in a train path in the future. If an RU wants to use such a CR in a train path, the RU must apply for it and exceed a valuation criterion to be able to get it. This valuation criterion is a connection to the costs that other yearly applied traffic has to take in order to make room for the reserve capacity. CRs are managed (not “allocated”) by the IM and are not allocated to an RU or entrepreneur until they have applied for it. CRs are available for allocation after the timetable is finalized and the short-term process (ad hoc) is started, including the process step Late path requests. The report also relates the models and methods to the upcoming new capacity allocation process called Timetabling and capacity redesign, TTR. TTR introduces Advance planning, i.e. planning in advance of the RU allocations. For this to work, it is crucial to be able to reserve capacity in various forms, both segmentation and reserve over time (safeguarding)