Key Issues on Train Line Planning for Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway

The Beijing-Shanghai High speed railway line (Hereinafter referred to as “Jing-Hu HSL”) is one of the most important railway lines in the Chinese rapid passenger transportation network and will be put into operation at the end of 2011. Train line planning directly reflects the quality and competition ability of train services. The characteristics of operational conditions and passenger flow of this corridor HSL bring about a few new issues on train line planning like night train operation, train OD sets, cyclic operation, and train stop schedule. For the first issue, a large amount of long distance travel demand put forward the demand for night services, which causes great conflict with the time-window for maintenance work. The confliction can be solved by harmoniously utilizing the parallel lines. For the second one, in view of the differences of technical and economic factors between HSL and conventional railways, high frequency and medium-long distance train will dominate HSL’s train service plan rather than low frequency and long distance trains on conventional railways. Thus, part of long-distance passenger flow has to transfer at some stations. Considering the whole possible ODs over Jing-Hu HSL and the transfer condition of related stations, the optimal OD sets and corresponding transfer plan is suggested. High frequency makes HSL possible to operate trains cyclically to improve service quality. However, with too many train ODs and some special trains, e.g. night train, an incomplete cyclic train operation mode is more practical. The ODs which can provide cyclic service for Jing-Hu HSL need to be identified. For the last issue, although non-stop long-distance train is a very popular kind of service in China, it should be reconsidered for Jing-Hu HSL line because of massive intercity travel demand and regular stops required. Each of the above issues is very complex. What is more, they have close relationship between each other. Due to limited space, the methods used to solve these issues are given in conceptual way rather than detailed description of mathematical model. The research paves the way for future integration study to design an efficient, economic, convenient, and regular train service plan for Jing-Hu HSL.