Exploitation studies

Millions of Euros are invested each year in rail projects on the basis of operational studies. The objectives of these studies are to match transport needs with the rail infrastructure and to assess the capacity of the network to meet these needs. Operational studies, which are strategic and crucial for informing public investment decisions concerning the future of the rail network and for the performance of the rail system, require rare and exclusive skills and currently produce scattered and poorly capitalized data. For this reason, SNCF Réseau has chosen in 2019 to equip itself with an in-house tool to carry out these studies.

The “OSRD Operational Studies” project was born in response to the shortcomings of the market: numerous and expensive tools, closed and with non-comparable results. On the contrary, we propose a reference tool accessible to all, whose results are transparent, explicit and universal. The OSRD tool provides a database with a microscopic modeling of the French railway infrastructure (gradients, radii of curvature, limiting speeds). An interface to modify the existing infrastructure or to design a new part of the infrastructure is proposed. Thanks to this modeling and to its running calculation engine, OSRD can calculate routes, draw paths, simulate trains and their interaction with the signaling system. OSRD meets the stakes of sustainable mobility by optimizing energy consumption. The expected regularity margin on the running of a train is distributed according to an algorithm that minimizes the energy consumed by the train during the journey.

An interesting element of verification of an exploitation scenario is the evaluation of the robustness of what is projected. For this function, a stochastic simulation module is proposed. Hazards can be modeled and injected into the simulator to evaluate the consequences and the ability of the system to return to balance.