Abstract
The new wave of signalling in Europe heralded by ETCS opens the opportunity to rethink and restructure the way railways do business. Swiss federal railways is embarking upon a program to systematically exploit the possibilities of that system to increase track slot capacity on its network. This paper reports on that program which has 4 key foci : 1. Streamlining of the ETCS technology itself to maximize resulting track slot capacity, 2. Systematic saturation of the network to maximise the effect on a network wide basis, 3. Flexibilising scheduling procedures to maximise the uptake of the newly available track slots, 4. Developing a new approach to rail traffic management to ensure the success of a dense future timetable. Swiss federal railways plan to increase its network capacity by 30% by implementing this program.
