The use of simulation in the planning of the Dutch railway services

The design of a quality timetable for the Dutch Railways is a complex task, because of the characteristics of the railway services. The complexity of the network and the heavily interrelated behavior of train operations, often cause small disturbances to lead to heavily disturbed operations. As a result the passenger often experiences less reliability and punctuality of the railway services than desired. Supporting the planning process with the right tools is therefore a must to guarantee a high quality of the final railway services. The design of a timetable is already fully supported by the Decision Support System DONS (Designer of Network Schedules). To evaluate the robustness of a timetable, Railned decided to construct a simulator as an advanced analysis function for the DONS-system. The DONS-Simulator enables us to study the effect of small disturbances on the punctuality of train operations in the full Dutch network. To avoid cumbersome and error-prone data entry to construct a simulation model, the simulator is linked to the DONS-database. The template technology of the Arena simulation software, in which the DONS-simulator is built, enables us to generate simulation models directly from this database. Already a fully operational prototype of the DONS-simulator has been built, partly integrated with the DONS-system. First reactions of planners used to working with the DONS-system, are positive. The simulator will be further developed and first be used to evaluate the infrastructure investments between 1990 and 2000, in terms of their effect on punctuality