Verification of Running Safety Evaluation Method for High-speed Railway

Article history: The Next-generation High-speed Rail Technology Development Project was started in 2007 by the Korean Government with the aim of developing the core technologies for a high-speed electric multiple unit (EMU) railway system. This is the first attempt to develop a high-speed EMU railway. High-speed EMU trains have superior acceleration and deceleration compared to push-pull high-speed railways such as KTX(Korean Train eXpress). A prototype train was developed and tested on a high-speed line starting in 2012. The new train must maintain running safety during the test. Generally, the international standard (UIC518) is adopted to evaluate the running safety of trains. This method suggests that the test zone must have over 25 sections, and the length of each section must be 500 m. However, it is difficult to implement these test conditions for a real high-speed line. In this study, we analyzed the running safety using several test section lengths (100 m to 500 m) and compared the results. The results of this study will be used to establish a running safety evaluation method for high-speed EMU railways.