Delay propagation and process management at railway stations

Process operators at large railway stations have the difficult task to secure a fluent train traffic flow while minimizing deviations from established timetables. Variation in actual train departure times is inevitable due to many circumstances such as arrival delays and fluctuations in alighting and boarding time, even if some buffer time is contained in the dwell time. Moreover, a departure may be delayed by waiting for a feeder train to secure a connection and by conflicting train movements prohibiting an outbound train path. The predictability of train processes is even more degraded when in similar situations different control actions are pursued depending on for instance individual dispatchers. In the Netherlands, passenger train services operate basically according to a cyclic timetable, repeating the same arrival and departure times each hour, with the exception of additional passenger trains in rush hours and freight trains that are scheduled in between the regular train services. It is hence anticipated that the traffic processes are mainly variations on a repetitious pattern. Analysis of historical realization data then yields operational insight that can be used to improve or support process management. To gain accurate operations data a software tool, TNV-Prepare, has been developed that filters relevant train detection data from train describer records. This paper starts with a brief account of the collection and preparation of train detection data. Then for the particular case of station Eindhoven a detailed punctuality analysis is reported including the performance of dwell and transfer times (tightness or possible recovery time) and train waiting times to secure connections. Departure delays are predicted from arrival delays using regression analysis, whereas the remaining noise is attributed to human factors.