Railway Station and Network Planning

The planning process, essential factors and methods which determine the design and use of passenger railway stations and networks are described. The kind, volume, spatial and temporal distribution of transport demand, trains, scheduled transport services, as well as topography, land-use, environment, population, economy, and transport policy impact on the design of stations and networks. Stations are usually ranked into top, middle, and low level, and further disaggregated into terminal or intermediate ones. The operational program determines the arrangement, use and levels of station platforms and tracks. Timetables are either periodic or non-periodic. Analytical and simulation methods are used to estimate track capacity consumption, calculate train running times, and simulate train operations. Optimization methods are increasingly applied for performance assessment of network timetables and assignment of platform tracks.