Methodological Review for Capacity and Punctuality Assessment Procedures

Climate change, congestion, safety, energy consumption and pollution are among the major issues that the European :::union::: and the wider world are facing nowadays. The European Commission is working towards the creation of a Single European Railway Area, encouraging a modal shift towards rail (mainly from road) in order to achieve a more competitive and sustainable European transport system. In this context, the research sector is contributing to the competitiveness and attractiveness of rail transport by tackling issues such as reliability and quality of services. Many parts of existing railway infrastructure are operated almost at full capacity and are not always capable of offering adequate levels of service. There is thus the need to boost the productivity of infrastructure assets in order to improve the reliability and responsiveness to customer requirements, as well as the capacity and the whole efficiency of rail transportation. This article provides a review and a practical comparison of capacity and punctuality assessment methodologies. Most importantly, it also identifies and evaluates a manageable and streamlined approach to their estimation for preliminary or large scale analysis based on consolidated formulations for travel time, delay and utilized capacity. This becomes particularly relevant in the absence of detailed infrastructure and timetable data as we aim at evaluating some fundamental operational and performance indicators.