Railroad Planning and Operations

A former president of the UIC once said,

"The railway will be the 21st Century's preferred mode of transport, if it can survive the 20th Century."

On the other hand, the renaissance of railways has often been predicted to be just around the corner.

Railways could play a very important role in helping to reduce energy consumption, improve the environment and reduce climate change, but they will need to change. Railways must become a transport mode of choice, rather than the transport mode of last resort.

Railways, like other transport systems, began life as the mode of choice. They moved goods and people more efficiently than the competition and so railway networks quickly became ubiquitous. They were economically successful and developed into a complex socio-technical system designed to preserve their success. But new technologies replaced railways by providing a more attractive product; airplanes are faster, automobiles and trucks provide users more choice in routing and scheduling. Railways have been relegated to niche transport markets, important niches, but niches none the less.

Today, many argue that improved rail service could help address rapidly rising energy costs, increasing pollution from burning fossil fuels, and climate change. This is true, but it won't be simple. Potential customers have become used to the independence provided by automobiles and trucks. In the short run higher fuel prices will attract more customers to rail, but attracting them to rail in the long term means offering truly improved services. Rail's competitors are working hard on new fuels and technologies to power airplanes, cars and trucks well into the future. Railways have a window of opportunity to revitalize their operations and services - to create a system fit for the 21st Century - but they need to break free from the past and embrace more modern institutional and technological ideas. Only then can railways seize a larger share of the market and effectively help reduce energy use and climate change.

This page describes some projects and ideas for improving railway service and planning.

Can IT help Railways?

I was co-author of a paper presented at the TRB's 2009 Annual Meeting describing how IT technologies could help railways improve service and become more efficient, thereby helping reduce climate change. The paper is called "Can Information Technology Help Rail Play a Greater Role in Prevenging Climate Change?" - click the link to download the pre-print.

Information Technology on the Railroad

Adopting new information technology (IT) strategies could help increase rail's share of the transport market by introducing change to social systems and technology. I worked on research at the ETH Zurich's Institute for Transport Planning and Systems that evaluated various strategies for using IT to improve railroad planning and operations. Three particular examples are:

The IT08.rail Conference was held at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in January 2008. The conference brought together scientists and railway operators to discuss the role and future of IT in railways. The paper: Can information technology help rail play a greater role in preventing climate change? was submitted for presentation at the US Transportation Research Board's 2009 Annual Meeting and describes some of the main ideas discussed at the conference. The paper, like the conference, raises more questions than it answers, but how these questions are answered is likely to determine if rail really will become the mode of the 21st Century.

But, IT is not enough! Changing from engineers to entrepreneurs

Railways are highly complex socio-technical systems. Railway service depends as much on the behaviour of people and institutions as on physics. But, historically railways have focused on technology - not social systems. This has enabled other forms of transport to steal business from railways - business that might more effectively and successfully be carried by innovative rail systems.

Many of the most significant barriers to railway innovation were social and institutional. This is typical for complex socio-technical systems like railways. European railways have started to think about how to create networks of high speed rail service rather than single lines, and one result is the formation of an alliance called Railteam. Railteam will work like airline alliances, developing methods for improving ticketing, service and customer loyalty.

Unfortunately, Railteam's slogan "High Speed Europe" is wrong. It's a slogan for engineers. It means building new track and faster trains. While these are important, they are not the main problems facing high speed rail. We already know how to build rail lines and better trains.

What we don't know is how to create truly seamless journeys for our customers (passengers and freight!). To win the race for customers, we need to create customer-centered products and services. This means addressing the social and institutional problems holding back railways by:

We need to experiment with new products and services designed to meet these objectives. The SNCF's iDTGV is a great example of creating a laboratory for testing new ideas. Independent business units like the iDTGV enable you to fail safely; they are the first step in developing successful innovation.

Technology can make these objectives possible - but people and institutions are needed to create them and make them work.

So, what should Railteam's new slogan be?

Railteam: More Europe - Less Hassles.

This slogan conveys what should be Railteam's main objective: improving service for customers.

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If you are interested in learning more about improving railway planning and operations please contact me.