INFLUENCE OF TRAFFIC COMPOSITION ON THE CAPACITY OF MIXED TRAFFIC RAILWAY LINES

The traffic capacity of a railway line corresponds to the maximum number of trains that can be operated on the line during a certain period of time (an hour, a day). On mixed traffic, double track lines, the major constraint for traffic capacity is the different speeds at which trains circulate. A mathematical model to assess the probabilistic relationship between the traffic capacity and traffic composition is introduced. The model determines the traffic capacity from the real running times which are influenced by the interference occurring among the trains travelling at different speeds. The paper also proposes a method to accommodate same speed traffic.