Uncategorized

Prof. Dick has been appointed to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine consensus committee studying the “Impacts of Trains Longer Than 7,500 Feet“. The consensus committee will examine factors associated with the operation of longer trains, including train dynamics and handling, braking, distributive power, communications and training. The study scope also includes investigating the impacts of longer trains on labor and crew requirements, highway rail grade crossings, passenger rail operations and air quality. The study was requested by Congress and is sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration. The study is scheduled for completion in summer 2024.

Excited to announce that TRAIN PhD student Jiaxi Zhao and Prof. Dick have recently published a new research paper in the Accident Analysis & Prevention academic journal! This paper is related to the study comparing unit and manifest train derailment risk funded by the Federal Railroad Administration and led by our collaborators at Rutgers University.

The reference and DOI link for the paper is as follows:

Kang, D., J. Zhao, C.T. Dick, X. Liu, Z. Bian, S.W. Kirkpatrick and C-Y Lin. 2023. Probabilistic risk analysis of unit trains versus manifest trains for transporting hazardous materials. Accident Analysis & Prevention. 181(3): 106950. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2022.106950.

Congratulations to TRAIN PhD student Jiaxi Zhao on her two research papers recently published in academic journals! One paper is related to her novel study of yard and terminal derailment severity funded by the Federal Railroad Administration. The second paper is related to her ongoing work to investigate various classification yard capacity and performance relationships by developing a yard simulation model using AnyLogic software. The resulting yard simulation model is currently being used to understand the operational consequences of yard derailment incidents, and how quickly individual yards and rail networks experience disruptions and recover to normal operations as a function of various operating, infrastructure and resource factors.

The references and DOI links for both papers are as follows:

Zhao, J., C.T. Dick and D. Kang. 2022. Analysis of derailment severity comparing unit trains at transload terminals and manifest trains at railroad switching and hump classification yards. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. doi: 10.1177/03611981221137593.

Zhao, J., and C.T. Dick. 2022. Quantifying the impact of classification track length constraints on railway gravity hump marshalling yard performance with AnyLogic simulation. International Journal of Computational Methods and Experimental Measurements. 10(4): 345-358. doi: 10.2495/CMEM-V10-N4-345-358.

Providing quantitative analysis to support railway systems and technological innovation at the nexus of train control, energy and automation.

Recent News