FTE view on optimizing TCR Planning

technical input elaborated by business experts

Improved selection of TCRs to be included in Advanced Capacity Planning

Currently, following Annex VII leads to selection of ‘Major’ and ‘High’ TCRs to be included in the Advanced Capacity Planning (ACP, the so called products Capacity Model and -Supply) which are used as basis for the Annual Timetable Process. This approach is based on the percentage of capacity being unavailable and the duration of the TCR; but these criteria do not fully match the real business needs regarding planning of trains for both IMs and RUs during TCRs.
Annex VII criteria also being the basis for the Law Revision process, we noticed several weaknesses:

• The categorizations do not take the stability of the TCRs into account. There is a high risk that a lot of effort deployed in the ACP phase turns out to be in vain, when TCRs are modified or removed.
• Some ‘Major’ or ‘High’ TCRs do not have a really big impact on the traffic - and therefor there is no necessity of including them in the Capacity Model or -Supply. For instance, the development of alternative traffic solutions for a secondary, low utilized line with a full closure for a month could generate less efforts in re-planning - and could be realized in running timetable.
• Otherwise, some ‘Medium’ or ‘Small’ TCRs do have a serious impact on traffic – especially on saturated lines. Taking up these TCRs already in the ACP process would give substantial benefits.

To take better account of the needs of both, IMs and RUs have developed an alternative approach: it consists of using alternative criteria for selecting TCRs to be integrated in the ACP process. The criteria are envisaged to select TCRs that really have a large impact on the ACP timetable products, and also takes into account the stability of the TCRs - avoiding rework to be done at later stages. As the amount of TCR-variants to be developed for ACP products is to be guarded, the proposal also foresees the possibility to add or remove TCRs from the gross list (based on the alternative criteria). These exceptions should be in- or excluded on the basis of mutual agreement between involved IMs and RUs.

The alternative approach could be executed regardless maintaining the current Annex VII criteria for publication of TCRs.

A proposal for these specific alternative criteria is being developed.

Harmonized and ‘one-time-right’ approach of TCR planning needs improvement

Currently, the process described in Annex VII is based on an individual approach per TCR: 4 months upfront of the start of each TCR, an alternative timetable solution is offered for Passenger RUs. 1 month upfront, Freight RUs are being offered alternative slots. As this is defined per TCR, multiple changes per train might occur – leading to intensive re-work (both for IMs and RUs) and an uncertain offer to the end customer, both freight and passengers.

This proposal contains a treatment of all TCRs for a time block (called ‘TimeTable Slice’) to be treated at one time. In this approach, all involved IMs develop internationally harmonized timetable solutions at a fixed deadline i.e. 4 months before the start of the TimeTable Slice, thus offering a ‘one-time-right’ solution for all trains.

Concretely, the traffic solutions for all TCRs taking place within that time frame are elaborated in a synchronized way for all affected trains from Origin to Destination on the international network.

In order to safeguard the developed solution, the proposal contains a freeze on adding new or modifying already planned TCRs with a commercial impact on already developed alternative traffic solution.

This ‘Frozen Zone’ should at least start from the beginning of the Path Alteration Process, and last until the end of the timetable slice – thus preventing that already developed solutions have to be reworked.

Download Presentation TCR Approach