Evaluation of Substation Capacity Using Headway Shift and Perturbation Parameters

The variations in the operation timetable or schedule of an electrified transit rail system can lead to substantial fluctuations in power demands of its traction power network. This paper studies the correlation between the maximum power demands and timetable perturbations for electrified transit rail systems. Specifically, the operation schedule uncertainties are quantified as two parameters: headway shift and headway perturbation. A computation algorithm is introduced to illustrate how to use these two parameters to obtain the worst case scenario to obtain maximum power demand of traction power substations. Also a special type of catenary-free light rail system is used as an example to illustrate the algorithm and numerical results.