The association of European rail infrastructure managers RailNetEurope (RNE) and the association of railway undertakings and service companies Forum Train Europe (FTE), supported by the European Rail Freight Association (ERFA), have launched the Timetabling and Capacity Redesign for Smart Capacity Management (TTR) project to harmonise and improve rail timetabling processes so as to make railways more competitive with other transport modes.
More information about the project is available at RNE website and FTE website.
PROCESS TIMELINE OF TTR
- Capacity Strategy (X-60 to X-36 months): The Capacity Strategy sets out long-term capacity planning principles for individual route sections, network parts or for the whole network. The main purpose of the strategy is to examine available infrastructure capacity on one side and future requests for capacity on the other. The strategy allows SŽ-Infrastruktura to coordinate future capacity requests with the infrastructure managers and applicants of neighbouring networks and define the chief principles which will underlie the capacity model.
- The Capacity Model (X-36 to X-18 months) details the expected demand for capacity and facilitates the way capacity is allocated for both annual planning and rolling planning while reserving capacity for temporary capacity restrictions (TCRs) and ad hoc path requests, where available. To impact the production process of the Capacity Model, applicants are invited to submit their respective Capacity Needs Announcement (CNA) and comment to us on the draft Capacity Model.
- Temporary capacity restrictions need to be harmonised internationally for maintenance, renewal or project works on the network or any other restrictions of use which may impact on infrastructure availability. This refers to temporary capacity restrictions with major, medium and minor impact and to maintenance windows, also known as ‘possessions’ (restrictions of use we require to deliver maintenance work activities to the infrastructure). Temporary capacity restrictions are essential in keeping the infrastructure and equipment in good condition and in facilitating infrastructure development to meet market needs.
- Path / capacity requests:
- capacity dedicated to annual planning: capacity which has to be coordinated by a specific deadline or be made available for requests placed after that deadline,
- capacity dedicated to rolling planning: safeguarded capacity available as a time slot or train path with specially defined deadlines for requests – such capacity will not be made available in the first stage of the implementation,
- capacity dedicated to ad hoc path requests: the remaining capacity for requests placed after X-2;
- capacity dedicated to ad hoc requests on short notice: unplanned capacity and other capacity for requests placed less than 30 days before the planned train run.
