Comparative Application of Methods for Nodes Capacity Assessment

Abstract Nowadays a considerable percentage of trains mature delays due to nodes and stations congestion. They are normally a combination of effects of routes conflicts in stations on lines and propagation in stations of delays suffered along the lines. Station areas represent the bottlenecks of railway operations, due to many incompatible train routes crossing each other that lead to many potential conflicts between trains. Goal of the research is to compare some literature methods to study nodes capacity, by application of if-then processes to analyze stability or variability of results obtained by various timetabling to occupy the minimum capacity and increase the number of trains. It is a typical critical circuit, which can be seen as the bottleneck of the timetable to prevent conflicts and delays. In order to tackle the purpose, the paper introduces synthetically the methods and applies them systematically to a complex network, including single and double track lines and various typologies of stations. The further development includes the comparative applications of the analytical methods, with respect to variation of input data, and of a simulation approach