Increasing performance of railway systems by exploitation of the relationship between capacity and operation quality

In this research, the influence of dispatching on the relationship between capacity and operation quality was evaluated systematically, so that real-time operation-oriented dispatching and long-term planning-oriented capacity research can be connected. The advantages are: on one hand, suitable dispatching algorithms can increase the capacity while meeting certain operation quality requirements; on the other hand, the accuracy of capacity research can be improved. Both of them are required to increase the infrastructure exploitation rate and avoid redundant infrastructure investments. In order to evaluate these influences, the dispatching algorithm was clearly defined in advance. A state-dependent dispatching optimization algorithm was developed based on greedy algorithm. The state-dependent variable in the optimization algorithm could be adjusted in each system state in order to achieve the best performance of the algorithm. The system state is characterized by three attributes in this article: the traffic flow, the average waiting time per train and the proportion of the delayed trains covering the whole investigation area. This article presents an innovative approach for the optimization of dispatching algorithms as function of the system state, in order to evaluate its impact on capacity and operation quality by means of microscopic simulation.