FASTA: A New Life For A Former Dinosaur
Adapting The Modelling Scope To New
Planning Requirements
Author(s)
P. Tzieropoulos, A. Curchod & Y. Putallaz
Abstract
FASTA has been developed for assessing timetable structures in strongly
connected networks. It is built for \“sketch simulation”, as it does not aim to
produce detailed results but rather to assist in identifying major discrepancies
between network and timetable, at early planning stages.
In the new planning paradigm (operations first and, then, infrastructure), long
term vision starts by defining a timetable in only its basic structure, leaving spare
capacity for allocation in a later stage (a year, a month, even a day before
operation). Moreover, in long term timetable planning, many alternatives are
drawn. To assess reliability of timetables designed 20 or 30 years ahead, there is
no need (and no possibility) to use detailed simulation, which requires detailed
definition of infrastructure and signalling. To apprehend the basic behaviour of a
timetable under multiple assumptions, planners need at this stage to run a huge
number of simulations fast and efficiently. Here comes the utility of sketch
simulations and tools, such as FASTA, able to perform them efficiently.
The main question during development is to set the right balance between
modelling simplicity (unavoidable due to uncertainties on far-future
infrastructure and timetable) and accuracy of the results. The trade-off problem
between simplicity and accuracy bears no single solution. Therefore, the initial
options that have been taken for FASTA some twenty years ago had to be
revisited. Developers had to reassess the consequences of simplification and to
extend the concept, in order to build a new package, based on a sensibly
modified balance, by trading off simplicity for better accuracy.
The paper presents the basic concepts of the simulation package, the initial
trade-off between simplicity and accuracy and its justification, the reasons for
changing the initial solution, and the latest developments of the FASTA package
based on a changed scope in planning needs.
Keywords: railways, railway network simulation, sketch planning, long term
planning, fixed-interval timetable.
Keywords
railways, railway network simulation, sketch planning, long term
planning, fixed-interval timetable.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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