Some British media wonder today if this is a magic cure to make the trains run on time … in my experience there are never magic cures for anything. But thanks to EU funding, Europeans face less disruption when travelling by train this summer.
The ARRIVAL project has developed advanced software that schedules trains more efficiently and handles disruptions, as they happen in real time, more effectively while maintaining the same level of safety. The results of this research are already being applied by railway operators across Europe. The best news is that we might be able to apply the algorithms in other areas such as road traffic navigation systems, industrial work-flow systems, e-commerce, peer to peer networks, grid computing networks and healthcare.
I couldn’t be happier. How does it work? It helps to stop the “domino effect” where lots of trains are help up because one fell behind schedule, partly by giving railway operators more graphic (visual) assistance to make decisions. about train scheduling, platform allocation, staff distribution and freight loads.
IT’S ALREADY WORKING
ARRIVAL has already been successfully implemented in The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. For example, ARRIVAL algorithms were used to draw up a new timetable for the Dutch national railway system which handles 5500 trains per day. In Berlin the waiting time between trains on the U-Bahn underground network has been reduced from 4 to 2 minutes.
This is a great example of the Commission supporting risky but important research. And we did it across 12 universities and there has been a great result. This is a win-win investment for everyone!
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Tags: ARRIVAL, European research, Neelie Kroes, transport, U-Bahn
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