Designing Automatic Train Regulation With Energy Saving by Using Dual Heuristic Programming

Issues regarding environment sustainability and energy saving have been receiving concerns in worldwide railway society though railway system have been recognized as a transport mode of less environmental impact. Energy saving via train operation and regulation would be a cost-effective way and becomes a requirement while performing train operation and regulation. Automatic Train Regulation (ATR) plays an important role of maintaining the service quality of metro. However, designing ATR is a large scale optimization problem with high nonlinearity, heavy constraints, and stochastic characteristics. Considering issues regarding energy saving in the ATR design further complicates the problem. A metro traffic model which accounts for energy consumption is investigated in this paper. Thereby, Dual Heuristic dynamic Programming (DHP) technique is employed to design an optimal ATR with energy saving for metro line. Simulation tests of the ATR design were carried out with field data. Results show that better traffic regulation with less energy consumption is attainable through coasting and dwell time control.