Automating the Import of Electronic Timetable Data to EMME/2-Based Public Transport Models

One of the speakers at RailDelft2005 issued a “plea for standardised models” for the simulation of railway operations. This issue is highly relevant in Britain, where the industry-standard CIF (Common Interface Format) timetable data files are not directly compatible with modelling tools such as RailSys and EMME/2. RMCon has developed a CIF import facility for RailSys, but no equivalent exists for EMME/2, which is used in the PLANET and Railplan multi-modal public transport models employed by the Department for Transport and Transport for London, respectively. This issue was highlighted during passenger demand forecasting work conducted by Arup for Network Rail (Britain‟s railway infrastructure owner and operator) for the South West Main Line Route Utilisation Strategy (SWML RUS), a strategy for the utilisation and development of the rail routes between London‟s Waterloo station and the area to the south-west. The PLANET South model was used for demand forecasting, using timetable data imported from a CIF file supplied by Network Rail. The issues encountered in importing the CIF data to PLANET led to the development of a Perl-based tool to automate the process, in a collaboration between Arup and the University of Southampton‟s Transportation Research Group. The success of this tool resulted in Arup being commissioned by Transport for London to develop a similar tool for Railplan, which simulates a less extensive but more detailed network than PLANET. The latter tool is now working and in use, although some aspects of it may yet be developed further.