Supervision and rescheduling of a mixed CBTC traffic on a suburban railway line

Railway companies need to achieve higher capacities on existing infrastructures such as high density suburban mainlines. Communication based train control (CBTC) systems have been widely deployed on dedicated subway lines. However, deployment on shared rail infrastructure, where CBTC and non-CBTC trains run, leads to a mixed positioning and controlling system with different precision levels and restrictions. New performance and complexity issues are to arise. In this paper, a method for rescheduling adapted to a CBTC system running in a mixed traffic, is introduced. The proposed method is based on a model predictive control (MPC) approach. In each step, a genetic algorithm with new mutation mechanisms solves the problem to optimize the cost function. It determines the dwell times and running times of CBTC trains, taking into account the non-CBTC trains planning and fixed-block localization. In addition, reordering can be allowed by modifying the problem constraints. The work is supported by a simulation tool developed by SNCF and adapted to mixed traffic study. The approach is illustrated with a case study based on a part of an East/West line in the Paris region network, proving the ability of the method to find good feasible solutions when delays occur in traffic.