Abstract
DC-Electric railways offer advantages in convenience, mass transportation performance, and being a green form of transport. In this paper, a rapid train service is considered for improving the quality of railway services and providing an eco-friendly performance. The main consideration of this study is the installation of a rapid service in a line without passing tracks, which effectively improves the total traveling time of passengers, and saves energy through greater efficiency. In order to install a rapid service in a conventional schedule that consists only of local train stops, one of two timetables is chosen to be replaced by a rapid service. The passing stations for a rapid service are determined with the use of mixed integer programming, which is a method of mathematical optimization. For this calculation, a sectional flow of passengers is analyzed, and a discrete origin and destination (OD) table is proposed. The resulting optimized timetable is presented, where unpopular stations are not necessary chosen as a passing station, because this calculation is based on the sectional flow of passengers. This means that the passing stations should be determined through an analysis of the OD table, rather than the number of passengers that board or alight. Finally, the consumption of energy is compared between local trains and rapid trains that use optimized scheduling. Running curves are calculated in each case, and the energy saved through the efficiency of rapid trains is shown to be 24.7%. This is because the amount of accelerating and decelerating time is reduced. This energy saving will be increased if the number of passengers who use the rapid trains increases.
