Feature
RICHARD HARPER, Associate Director at Steer, reflects on the challenges facing timetablers
The way we plan our timetables tomorrow will be markedly different from the way we planned our timetables yesterday. The last 25 years have seen train kilometres grow by a third as passenger numbers have more than doubled.
The basic principles of planning – timing trains, conflict detection, allocation of resources – are unlikely to change fundamentally, but the objectives we set for our train services, the compromises necessary between alternative uses of capacity and industry decision-making processes will need to recognise the challenges posed by an increasingly congested network.
