OpenTrack – A Tool for Simulation of Railway Networks

OpenTrack began a few years ago as a research project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The aim of the project, Object-oriented Modeling in Railways, was to develop a userfriendly tool that would answer questions about railway operations by simulation. One of the tasks OpenTrack supports is calculation of minimum headways (headway calculation), e.g. using the OpenTrack tool Headway Calculator. Based on a number of input parameters, the headway calculator computes the minimum headway between two trains and is able to identify the critical block section. The two trains may vary in type (e.g. intercity, commuter, freight, etc.), route and stopping pattern. The headway calculation works for fixed block (discrete block), moving block and CBTC systems. During the simulation predefined trains run on a railway network according to the timetable and under the constraints of the signaling system. After a simulation run, OpenTrack can analyze and display the resulting data in the form of diagrams, train graphs, occupation diagrams and statistics.