Railway operations are the result of the complex interaction among infrastructure and signaling, rolling stock and timetable. This interaction is further complicated by a number of human factors and other unpredictable phenomena and stochastic disturbances. The key role in this complex mix is played by the timetable, which allows smooth operation by shaping the services to fit the demand and the characteristics of the network and the rolling stock. Different strategies might be implemented: in some countries the new lines and stations are very flexible towards different timetable concepts, while in others, such as in Switzerland, the are lines specifically designed for a given timetable. Both extreme approaches show significant drawbacks: a higher flexibility is normally obtained at a significant cost, while a very rigid infrastructure might require remarkable investments to be adapted to different needs. In this trade-off a certain balance might be obtained by analyzing several timetable and infrastructure configurations. However, this task appears particularly time-consuming and strictly related to the experience of timetable planners: thus, normally very few scenarios are considered. To fill this gap, by significantly reducing the time required to prepare a scenario, a new approach was developed. It is based on an automatic timetable generation tool that allows quickly creating timetable drafts on a quite detailed infrastructure model. The model and its application to the Norwegian rail network will be presented in the paper.

railway capacity, timetable reliability, stochastic simulation