A Study of the Performance and Utilization of High Speed Rail in China based on UIC 406 Compression Method

UIC Code 406 is an easy and effective way of calculating the capacity consumption. Based on the UIC 406 capacity method, the capacity consumption of railway infrastructure can be measured by compressing the timetable. Regarding the UIC 406 capacity leaflet as a framework, an optimal method are proposed to compress the realrecord timetable for practical capacity consumption, with respect to train orders, overtaking and crossing on the given timetable. The proposed method is applied to evaluate the capacity consumption of Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR in China. Firstly the Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR is divided into several sections according to the station class on the line. Then each section can be handled separately by the UIC 406 capacity method and the capacity consumption can be got. Based on the result the temporal-spatial uneven of capacity utilization and the capacity bottleneck of the line can be defined. It can be concluded that the temporal-spatial uneven of capacity consumption of WuhanGuangzhou HSR is obvious. The capacity consumption in the early times during one day is high, and the section from Guangzhou South station to Yueyang East station is easy to be a bottleneck due to the layout of the HSR. Besides, the analysis shows that the capacity consumption on railway lines is very responsive section examined. Therefore, the division of the lines into sections is of major importance for the results of capacity consumption.