The potential growth of railway traffic is expected to be substantial worldwide; hence, railway companies and agencies are looking for better tools to allocate their capital investments to capacity planning in the best possible way. This paper presents a comprehensive decision support framework with three stand-alone tools for strategic railway capacity planning: (1) “Alternatives Generator,” w...

On December 8, 1896, the Supreme Court heard arguments in United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association.1 The defendant was an association of 18 railroads locked in competition for traffic between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean. By memorandum of agreement, member railways had voluntarily agreed to cease all price-based competition and abide by a common schedule of rates. Attorne...

Performance-Based Technology Scanning (PBTS) is a methodology for identifying areas where new technologies can have greatest performance benefits in terms of reducing costs, increasing market share, and achieving higher profitability. New technologies, however exciting, are germane only if important improvements in performance are realized. Utility analyses quantify the impact that technology c...

The MIT-UIC Technology Scanning Project has the broad goal of identifying new and emerging technologies as applied to the railroads, in a generalized search for technologies. To gain an understanding of what technologies are currently emerging and what they are capable of, we conducted a survey of MIT’s over 200 labs, research centers and programs. The new technologies can be grouped into diffe...

22 23 Implementation of highway-rail grade crossing warning systems, educational programs and 24 research on crossings have all contributed to a steady reduction in the risk to highway users of 25 grade crossings over the past several decades. Much less attention has been given to 26 understanding the effect of grade crossings on train safety and risk. Collisions at highway-rail 27 grade crossi...