Rail is potentially a very efficient form of transport, but must be convenient, reliable and cost-effective to compete with road and air transport. Optimal control can be used to find energy-efficient driving strategies for trains. This book describes the train control problem and shows how a solution was found at the University of South Australia. This research was used to develop the Metromiser system, which provides energy-efficient driving advice on suburban trains. Since then, this work has been modified to find practical driving strategies for long-haul trains. The authors describe the history of the problem, reviewing the basic mathematical analysis and relevant techniques of constrained optimisation. They outline the modelling and solution of the problem and finally explain how the fuel consumption can be minimised for a journey, showing the effect of speed limits and track gradients on the optimal driving strategy.

Competitive tendering provides a way to introduce competition to railways whilst preserving an integrated network of services. It has been used for freight railways in some countries but is particularly attractive for passenger networks when subsidised services make competition between trains serving the same routes difficult or impossible to organise. Governments promote competition in railways to reduce costs, not least to the tax payer, and to improve levels of service to customers. Concessions are also designed to bring much needed private capital into the rail industry. The success of competitive tendering in achieving these outcomes depends critically on the way risks are assigned between the government and private train operators. It also depends on the transparency and durability of the regulatory framework established to protect both the public interest and the interests of concession holders, and on the incentives created by franchise agreements. This report examines experience to date from around the world in competitively tendering rail services. It seeks to draw lessons for effective design of concessions and regulation from both the successful and less successful cases examined. The work is based on detailed examinations by leading experts of the experience of passenger rail concessions in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. It also draws on examples of freight rail concessions in Latin America.

It is widely accepted that management concepts such as strategic management, human resource management and management development have a well-defined body of knowledge designed to inform management praxis, however the notion of efficiency has no such body of knowledge to support its application within management praxis. This book proposes the replacement of the generalised term efficiency with the more comprehensive notion of performance efficiency to provide a reliable basis on which to evaluate management behaviour. Given the scope of the investigation, the outcome is not designed to prove the success or failure of the inherent nature of efficiency, but rather to establish a new starting point for yet wider empirical research. At a macro-level, it advances the proposition that the notion of efficiency has become an ideological statement of support for any management intention rather than a practical means to inform or evaluate a range of management actions.

This book shows how the systems approach is employed by scientists in various countries to solve specific problems concerning railway transport. In particular, the book describes the experiences of scientists from Romania, Germany, the Czech Republic, the UK, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland. For many of these countries there is a problem with the historical differences between the railways. In particular, there are railways with different rail gauges, with different signaling and communication systems, with different energy supplies and, finally, with different political systems, which are reflected in the different approaches to the management of railway economies. The book’s content is divided into two main parts, the first of which provides a systematic analysis of individual means of providing and maintaining rail transport. In turn, the second part addresses infrastructure and management development, with particular attention to security issues. Though primarily written for professionals involved in various problems concerning railway transport, the book will also benefit manufacturers, railway technical staff, managers, and students with transport specialties, as well as a wide range of readers interested in learning more about the current state of transport in different countries.