Automated Daily Analysis of Temporary Speed Restrictions

For a regional passenger railroad, we instituted daily automated analysis of temporary speed restrictions (TSRs) to enable senior managers to understand quantitatively the impact that daily and long-term track maintenance work was having on the service.  At that time, the railroad had a paper-based process that issued daily TSR bulletins to train & engine employees, but did not systematically capture delays associated with these TSRs.  We designed a process that predicted number of trains affected by these TSRs (which may affect only one of four tracks, therefore did not necessarily impact every train passing the location), and a simplified train performance calculator that simulated the effect of braking from normal linespeed, traversing the restriction, accelerating out of it, time required for radio communications, and any nearby station stops that may reduce the resulting delays.  This data became an infrastructure performance measure that was monitored by the senior leadership.