An Economic Evaluation of the Swedish Prioritisation Rule for Conflict Resolution in Train Traffic Management

An increase in train traffic is a politically welcomed trend, which on the other hand has led to too high capacity utilisation at times and a railway network sensitive to disturbances. Delays are easily spread, causing high cost. A mean of controlling the secondary delays is to use efficient operational prioritisation rules for trains in conflict. This paper presents an evaluation of the current Swedish prioritisation rule. For two frequent conflict situations the associated cost related to applying the rule is calculated. The result indicates a poor economic efficiency and show that significant savings can be achieved by changing strategy.