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Sustainable Railway Systems: Innovation and Optimization
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Sustainable Railway Systems: Innovation and Optimization

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Transportation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 January 2021) | Viewed by 10028

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Valerio De Martinis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for Data Analysis and Process Design, Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Winterthur, Switzerland
Interests: public transport design and operation; rail traffic management; train operation optimization; energy efficiency and public transport systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Railway systems, like other public transport systems, will face incredible challenges in the coming years. On the one hand, they support the productivity of our society with an increasing mobility demand; on the other hand, the pandemic has highlighted their limitations. Railways are recognized as one of the best solutions for traveling in a sustainable way, from an economic, ecological, and social perspective. Nowadays, they require better models and new tools to fully exploit the capabilities of current and future technologies (e.g., ATO systems, moving block signaling systems, virtual coupling) and to be resiliently prepared for future changes from the user, the operational, and the economic point of view.

In this context, the Special Issue “Sustainable Railway Systems: Innovation and Optimization” welcomes research papers on current and future innovations in railway systems and their optimal use for a more sustainable operation, addressing one or more of the following research streams:

  • Infrastructure (e.g., planning, construction, maintenance, noise, vibration, power supply systems);
  • Rail traffic management (e.g., line planning, traffic control, train operation, energy efficiency);
  • Vehicle (e.g., light materials/new wagon concepts, regenerative braking, onboard batteries, automation, energy saving speed profiles);
  • Rail freight (e.g., planning, operation, new rail freight vehicle concepts, optimal vehicle composition and wagons disposition, urban rail freight);
  • Information from/to customers (e.g., smart card data, mobile apps, disruptions management);
  • Strategic development (e.g., high-speed rail, high-capacity rail, Hyperloop).

Please consider the abovementioned topics in brackets as examples, though submissions are not limited to these.

I am looking forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Valerio De Martinis
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • rail operation
  • rail system
  • rail infrastructure
  • automation
  • rail transportation
  • rail freight

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1289 KiB  
Article
Identifying Technology Opportunities for Electric Motors of Railway Vehicles with Patent Analysis
by Yunkoo Cho, Young Jae Han, Jumi Hwang, Jiwon Yu, Sangbaek Kim, Chulung Lee, Sugil Lee and Kyung Pyo Yi
Sustainability 2021, 13(5), 2424; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052424 - 24 Feb 2021
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 2995
Abstract
An electric motor is a device that changes electrical energy into mechanical energy for railway vehicles. When developing the electric motor, it used to be developed simply for structures or control methods of the motor itself without considering convergence with other devices or [...] Read more.
An electric motor is a device that changes electrical energy into mechanical energy for railway vehicles. When developing the electric motor, it used to be developed simply for structures or control methods of the motor itself without considering convergence with other devices or technologies. However, as the railway vehicles become more advanced, technology development through convergence with other devices or technologies is spreading. Therefore, based on patent data related to the electric motors applied to the railway vehicles, this research aims to carry out technical forecasting for establishing research and development (R and D) direction for new technologies by predicting vacant technologies from the point of view of technology convergence. In other words, we studied how to find the vacant technologies in a field of convergence technology for the electric motor of the railway vehicles by analyzing the patent data. More specifically, we search the patents data associated with the electric motor of the railway vehicle that contain multiple IPC codes, and use multiple IPC codes to determine the field of convergence technology. In addition, we extract keywords from the patents data related to each of the determined convergence technologies and define the vacant technologies by interpreting the field of convergence technology and the extracted keywords. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Railway Systems: Innovation and Optimization)
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16 pages, 518 KiB  
Article
Windows of Opportunity in the CoPS’s Catch-Up Process: A Case Study of China’s High-Speed Train Industry
by Han Huang, Jie Xiong and Junfang Zhang
Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2144; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042144 - 17 Feb 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3203
Abstract
Over the last 20 years, the rapid development of high-speed Chinese trains has provided valuable guidelines to countries and companies eager to develop their complex product and system (CoPS) sectors. CoPS refers to the high cost and technology-intensive systems, networks, infrastructure and engineering [...] Read more.
Over the last 20 years, the rapid development of high-speed Chinese trains has provided valuable guidelines to countries and companies eager to develop their complex product and system (CoPS) sectors. CoPS refers to the high cost and technology-intensive systems, networks, infrastructure and engineering constructs, and services. Although established studies highlight the importance of CoPS to the economy and development of a country, especially those that have yet to develop high-speed rail, scholars have not paid much attention to investigating the catch-up of CoPS industries from the windows of opportunity perspective. We aimed to fill in this research gap by analyzing the successful catch-up of Chinese high-speed trains. Based on a longitudinal case study of this industry, we analyzed and detailed the mechanisms of the catch-up process of a typical CoPS sector and its development. Our results enrich the literature of the catch-up process, CoPS, and the studies of windows of opportunity. In particular, we show that the windows of opportunity that emerge in the catch-up process of CoPS have the characteristics of endogeneity, asymmetry, and relevance. Moreover, our study further indicates that the endogenous windows of opportunity regarding policy result in the development of later windows of technology and demand. We also find that the technology’s windows of opportunity consist of the window to broaden the technology width and the window to deepen the technology depth of latecomers. In addition to theoretical contributions, our findings can help policymakers of latecomer countries better formulate CoPS industrial policies, followed by a gradual progress in successfully catch-up with the leading countries. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Railway Systems: Innovation and Optimization)
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21 pages, 1476 KiB  
Article
Railway System Design by Adopting the Merry-Go-Round (MGR) Paradigm
by Luca D’Acierno and Marilisa Botte
Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2033; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042033 - 13 Feb 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2510
Abstract
Public transport systems can be characterised by a schedule-based or a frequency-based framework according to the kind of service to be operated. In the former case, specific departure and arrival times are set for each run and disclosed to the users; in the [...] Read more.
Public transport systems can be characterised by a schedule-based or a frequency-based framework according to the kind of service to be operated. In the former case, specific departure and arrival times are set for each run and disclosed to the users; in the latter, instead, it is necessary to maintain a certain headway between two successive runs, rather than a specific timetable structure. This paper focuses on modelling frequency-based systems, which can be described by means of the so-called Merry-Go-Round (MGR) paradigm. The paradigm is first discussed and the related analytical formulation is presented; the role of the terminal station layout is then investigated within this framework. Finally, in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed formulation, it was implemented in the case of a real-scale metro line. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Railway Systems: Innovation and Optimization)
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