ข้อมูลผลงานวิจัย

One challenge in railway operation is how to achieve high levels of punctuality and reliability. However, especially in peak hour operation, high volume of train traffic will affect timetables which are more sensitive to the increase in travel time. The concept of virtual coupling has been introduced for controlling train movement mainly to increase capacity. As the operation under virtual coupling requires short separation distance between trains, it might be applied to reduce the delay and recover the train timetable. However, there is no approach proposed detailing how can the coupling is applied to reduce delay.

In this paper, the virtual coupling state movement approach based on vehicle following model with the coupling conditions determined to couple a group of trains for reducing or preventing secondary delay is proposed. The train operation under the proposed approach is simulated in MATLAB software, then applied to the hypothetical case, High-speed line, Bangkok - Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. The delay analysis is performed, and the waiting probability is determined to prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The simulation results show that trains will be virtually coupled with their front train as a form of train convoy when they cannot proceed with the ideal speed. Thus, operating train movement based on the proposed approach can reduce secondary delay and bring a train to arrive on time compared to the operation under the moving block control.