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Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Terminology
• Concept
• Functionality
• Partners and Customers
• System Requirements
• Further Information

Introduction

Railway companies often seek to develop new schedules that improve customer service with more and faster trains while minimizing the need for infrastructure improvements. Developing new schedules (constructing new timetables) is a complex process and must be done carefully to avoid errors.

A train that regularly operates behind schedule may cause delays to other trains and to rail operations as a whole. As a basis for better timetables, the computer program OpenTimeTable helps analyze how trains deviated from the timetable in the recent past. OpenTimeTable enables users to analyze systematic delays and fine-tune timetables, create more attractive services and better utilize infrastructure.

In the future, OpenTimeTable will offer features that automatically analyze train operations over time and notify users of any trend towards poorer service.

OpenTimeTable was developed as a research project at the Institute of Transportation Planning and Systems (IVT) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB).

This screenshot shows the Macintosh version of OpenTimeTable

Terminology

OpenTimeTables uses two main kinds of data:

• Scheduled train movements (as prescribed by the timetable).
• Actual train movements (as they really occurred on specific dates in the past)

Concept

OpenTimeTable brings together data on how trains should have run according to the timetable and how they have really run. On SBB, data on actual train runs comes from the SURF system, which continuously records train positions for SBB’s dispatching centers. OpenTimeTable graphically juxtaposes “what should have happened” and “what really did happened”. It thus helps the people responsible for timetables to analyze when and where delays tend to arise and to fine-tune the next version of the timetable accordingly.

This example shows the most important elements of the current version of OpenTimeTable: The figure on top shows the corridor between Bern and Luzern, Switzerland, which has many single-track sections. The red lines are scheduled train movements according to the timetable and the blue lines are mean actual train times for a chosen period. The green areas show the space needed by the earliest 95% of the trains. Of this 95%, the dark green areas represent delays exceeding five minutes. The two figures at the bottom show the distributions of arrival delays at Bern and Luzern. You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it. A PDF-Version (1 MB) is available for download.

Functionality

Manual analysis

Comparison between the timetable and actual train times (in graphical and text form).
Mean train times; standard deviation of train times at a station (arrival and departure).
Distribution of delays at stations.
Delays for a given hour of day, weekday, week or month.
Analysis of excessive dwell times at stations.
Areas showing the space actually needed for trains. You can also see the space needed by the earliest n% of the trains and by trains whose delay exceeded a threshold.
Analysis of time slots actually used.
Data export in ASCII and RailML format.
Data import in RailML format (scheduled for end-2004).

Automatic analysis

This module automatically examines the available data and provides notice of any violations of user-defined constraints, for example stations whose mean delay exceeds a threshold.

This webbased module is now available. A description is forthcoming.

Partners and Customers

SBB AG I-TM-FP Hochschulstrasse 6 CH - 3000 Bern 65	ProRail P.O. Box 2101 NL - 3500 Utrecht

System Requirements

Macintosh version

• PowerMacintosh G4, PowerBook G4 running MacOS X Server or MacOS X 10.3
• 768 MB RAM or more recommended
• 80 GB HD or more recommended
• 21''-Monitor recommended
• Color printer recommended
• FrontBase (E-Business or E-Starter license)
• WebObjects 5.2 for automatic analysis.

Windows version

• Pentium-III-Rechner or better running Windows NT 4.x, 2000 or XP
• 768 MB RAM or more recommended
• 80 GB HD or more recommended
• 21''-Monitor recommended
• Color printer recommended (only PostScript printers are supported)
• WebObjects 4.x (not WebObjects 5.x)
• WebObjects 5.2 for automatic analysis.
• FrontBase (E-Business or E-Starter license)

Further Information

If you need further information please contact me or download the OTT-Infosheet (PDF-Format, 1.6 MB).