Railway

Capacity
Allocation
(an introduction)
A guide for Capacity
Allocation as per European
Union directives

Kostas Tzanakakis
railhow.com
railhow.com February 2019
…what is this presentation about…

• In rail transport, a train path or (train slot) is a license that allows its holder, usually a railway company,
to run a train on a specific section of track at a specific time, similar to an airport slot in civil aviation.
• This presentation is guiding to the capacity allocation as per European Union directives. It presents the
processes for capacity allocation (allocation of train path requests) to be applied by the Infrastructure
Manager.
• “Capacity allocation” is referred to as the number of trains per hour that can be operated on a railway
line. The key objective for railway capacity allocation is using the railway infrastructure capacity as
efficiently as possible.

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 Introduction
to transport
capacity
allocation

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An introduction to the allocation of infrastructure capacity

• The allocation of infrastructure capacity is a major issue in

various transport infrastructure sectors.
• A characteristic of transport infrastructure is its limited
capacity.
• Infrastructure capacity defines the maximum flow or load of
traffic it can serve within a period, depending on prevailing
circumstances.
• Because of infrastructure capacity scarcity, it is important
that the existing infrastructure capacity is used in an optimal
way.

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• Capacity allocation is a type of traffic planning, of which the key characteristic is that infrastructure
users have to reserve a 'slot' on the network before departure. The total number of users admitted to
each bottleneck per period is limited, depending on its capacity.
• Given the EU objective of equal access to infrastructure networks and the increasing scarcity of
infrastructure capacity, the propagation of fairness and efficiency of slot allocation in the railway and
aviation sectors has become a major issue.
• Air and rail transportation systems are characterized by important common features. Capacity (slot)
allocation is currently applied in the railway and aviation sectors.

Slot
Train Path
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 Operational Planning of Railway Systems

• line planning: determines Railway Undertaking Infrastructure Manager network planning: determines
the lines and their frequency t planning the microscopic layout of the
of operation Network Planning
railway infrastructure
• train timetabling: capacity allocation: including
determines the arrival and Line Planning the train path requests into
departure times of trains at the working train timetable
train stations re-scheduling: controlling the
• vehicle planning: rolling Train Timetabling Capacity Allocation movements of trains during
stock assignment operation
• crew planning: crew
rostering and staff planning Vehicle Planning

Crew Planning

Re-scheduling
t planning =
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t operation
 Introduction
to Railway
capacity
allocation

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Train Path Request Types

• Dependent on this planning time horizon and on whether the train path request concerns railway
infrastructure capacity of more than one national railway Infrastructure Manager, four different types
of train path requests can be distinguished.
• Train Path Request Types
• Long term train path requests
• Regional (International) train path requests
• Annual train path requests
• Ad hoc train path requests

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• Long term train path requests are contracted by so called framework agreements. The planning time
horizon of long term train path requests is ranging from 5 to 15 years. The long planning time horizon
shall insure reliability for the future planning of railway Infrastructure Managers and railway
undertakings.
• Regional (International) train path requests do require railway capacity from at least two different
national railway Infrastructure Managers.

Article 15 of Directive 2001/14 (Article Dir 2012/34 points out that international train path requests need a
particular level of cooperation between the concerned national Infrastructure Managers. But not only
cooperation between the Infrastructure Managers is required. Various national train path requests may have
to be altered in order to permit the allocation of an international train path request.

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• Annual train path requests have to be requested annually to be included into the annual train
timetable.
They can be requested from at most 12 months in advance of the entry into force of the working
train timetable until a deadline that can be determined by the Infrastructure Manager. Most
European Infrastructure Manager set this deadline to 8 month before entry into force of the
working train timetable.

0m
-12 m -8 m

Path Working
request timetable

• Ad hoc train path requests are requested at short notice. This applies for example for cargo train
movements which are planned in a far more flexible way than the train movements of passenger
trains.

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Objectives for Railway Capacity Allocation

• As long as one integrated Railway Company managed and operated the national railway systems in
the European Union, there was one key objective for railway capacity allocation: using the railway
infrastructure capacity as efficient as possible.
• During the allocation of train path requests the Infrastructure Manager shall meet the requests of the
railway undertakings as far as possible including those requests for train path crossing more than one
national network.
• The constraints on railway undertakings as well as the economic effects of the train path allocation
shall be considered as objective during the railway capacity allocation process.

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• After constructing the draft working train timetable, conflicts may occur.
• Particularly on highly congested parts of the railway infrastructure such conflicts are very likely to
occur and must be resolved in order to obtain a valid, feasible working train timetable.
• For such cases a coordination process is launched in order to solve the occurring conflicts. Article
21 of EU Directive 2001/14/EC describes this coordination process.

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Information needed on capacity allocation

• The information that needs to be available for the capacity

allocation procedure can be categorised in three groups:
• information about the railway infrastructure and the available
railway capacity
• information about the train path requests and their railway
capacity consumption
• information about the objectives and forcing points for train
path allocation
• The Infrastructure Manager is forced to publish information about
its railway infrastructure. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the
railway undertakings to formulate their train path requests.
• The railway undertaking submits their train path requests and
thus the information about the need for railway capacity.

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Network statement: Capacity allocation
(Dir. 2012/34 - recast)

• In Article 3 (Definitions) is referred

• “network statement” means the statement which sets out in
detail
• the general rules,
• deadlines, procedures and
• criteria for charging and capacity-allocation schemes,
including such other information as is required to enable
applications for infrastructure capacity”

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1. The infrastructure manager shall, after consultation with the interested parties, develop and
publish a network statement ……. .
2. The network statement shall set out the nature of the infrastructure which is available to railway
undertakings, and contain information setting out the conditions for access to the relevant
railway infrastructure. The network statement shall also contain information setting out the
conditions for access to service facilities connected to the network of the infrastructure manager
and for supply of services in these facilities or indicate a website where such information is made
available free of charge in electronic format.
3. The network statement shall be kept up to date and amended as necessary.

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4. The network statement (NS) shall be published no less than four months in advance of the
deadline for requests for infrastructure capacity.

0m
-12 till -16 m -12 m -8 m
(*)
4m

NS Path Working
publication request timetable

(*) depending on the date for path request to be set up by the IM (in the period -8 to -12 months before
issue of working timetable

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Documents needed to apply for train paths

• Every railway undertaking which wishes to use infrastructure,

usually requires
• a network access licence
• a safety certificate, and
• a network access agreement (which is to be concluded with
the Infrastructure Manager).

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Schedule for the allocation process
(Annex III Dir. 2001/14 – Annex VII dir. 2012/34)

1. The working timetable shall be established once per calendar year.

2. The change of working timetable shall take place at midnight on the second Saturday in December.
Where a change or adjustment is carried out after the winter, in particular to take account, where
appropriate, of changes in regional passenger traffic timetables, it shall take place at midnight on the
second Saturday in June and at such other intervals between these dates as are required.
Infrastructure managers may agree on different dates and in this case they shall inform the
Commission if international traffic may be affected.
3. The final date for receipt of requests for capacity to be incorporated into the working timetable shall
be no more than 12 months in advance of the entry into force of the working timetable.
4. No later than 11 months before the working timetable comes into force, the Infrastructure Managers
shall ensure that provisional international train paths have been established in cooperation with other
relevant allocation bodies as set out in Article 15. Infrastructure Managers shall ensure that as far as
possible these are adhered to during the subsequent processes.

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5. No later than four months after the deadline for submission of bids by applicants, the
Infrastructure Manager shall prepare a draft timetable.

0m
-12 till -16 m -12 m -8 m Draft
(*) timetable

4m

NS Working
Path
publication timetable
request
<4 m

-8 m latest-4
Fixed by the IM m
for submission of
Path requests

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• RNE has harmonised the major deadlines within the international timetabling process for the
annual timetable:
• Deadline for path ordering for the annual timetable:
every year on the second Monday in April
• Deadlines for drafting the international timetable:
every year on the Monday at the beginning of the 13th week after the path request date
• Deadlines for final answers to customers:
every year on the Monday at the beginning of the 19th week after the path request date

0m
-12 till -16 m -12 m -8 m Draft
(*) timetable DEC.
4m APRIL

Working
NS Path timetabl
publication request Drafting e
<4 m
timetable 13 w
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-8 m latest-2 m
Structure of the Capacity Allocation procedures

• The structure of capacity allocation procedures follows the

“RNE Network Statement - Common Structure & Implementation

Guide”

http://www.rne.eu/rneinhalt/uploads/RNE_NS_Common_Structure.pdf

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 One Stop
Shop (OSS)

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• The European railway Infrastructure Managers (IMs) and Allocation Bodies (Abs) who joined
RailNetEurope have set up One Stop Shops that work as a network of customer contact points
under the RNE umbrella.
• When applying for an international path customers only need to contact one of these Ones Stop
Shops, which initiates the whole international path co-ordination process.

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• The contacted OSS in close co-operation with the concerned IMs:
• offers the customer support and information on the product and service range of the
Infrastructure Manager;
• supplies the information required to gain access to the infrastructure of any Infrastructure
Manager participating in RNE;
• coordinates requests for any international train path within RNE, including requests for the
next timetabling period, so that they can be duly taken into account in the annual timetabling
process;
• provides train path offers for the whole international journey; the path coordination is mainly
done via the RNE Path Coordination System (PCS).

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• The OSS also provides information on infrastructure charges and train movements, including
quality monitoring.
• The functions are supported by RNE’s information tools:
• the Charging Information System and
• Train Information System.

• The OSS philosophy stands for competent and efficient assistance across all borders based on
transparent, confidential and non-discriminatory procedures.

• A list of OSS contacts is available at the website of RNE: http://www.rne.eu.

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OSS – state of the art in modern service organisations
• SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT
• „one face to the customer“

• SINGLE POINT OF INFORMATION & TRUTH

• instead of different inroads and answers/outputs
• no parallel work on same requests
• All customer data
• Single „status-Information“

• ONE SALES-CHANNEL FOR ALL SERVICES

• Enhanced Cross- and upselling opportunity
• clear internal procedures
• „lean production“
• get faster through different departments

• SHORT RESPONSE TIMES

• BETTER SERVICE QUALITY → CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

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 Visit my website www.railhow.com, the touchstone for people who are working
within the engineering sector and would like to progress their careers by gaining
practical, yet impactful knowledge and learning experiences.

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A few words about me….

• Civil Engineer (MSc.) - University of Hannover in Germany

• Master Executive MBA degree - Athens University of Economics &

Business.

• Over 30 years of experience in the railway sector, including eight

years in Director positions at Greek Railways Organization

• 2006 - 2013 the Head of the Railway Systems Directorate.

• 2013, 2014 development of the Omani National Railway Network.

• Senior Railway Expert at the Ministry of Transport and

Communications in Oman.

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Contact US
www.railhow.com

[email protected]

Leading a dynamic railway experience!

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