Author(s)

A Curchod

Abstract

International trains, in particular freight trains, spend too much time waiting for resources or for administrative tasks (customs clearance, for instance); this is particularly true in case of perturbations and train delays. To improve international rail traffic performance and reliability, train traffic should be managed comprehensively, from origin to destination. The OPTIRAILS projects (financed by EC under the 4' and 5th EU/Framework programs, and by the project partners themselves, and supported by the UIC) aim to develop European-wide supervisory management, to control international traffic in coordination with existing national traffic management. This new corridor-oriented European supervisory layer will: - collect and distribute information on international trains and on the network status, - help train rescheduling or rerouting, in case of perturbation, - sustain negotiation between infrastructure managers (and eventually train operators) in order to optimise corridor-wide traffic management. The paper presents the OPTIRAILS rail traffic management concept. It then focuses on the different strategic options and the expected improvements for the international rail traffic.

Keywords