21000: How can courses of track be modified by surcharges?

In FBS, there are several ways to influence routes by means of surcharges "driving dynamics-independently". These differ according to the motivation of the procedure:

  • For consideration of a given non-linear surcharge (e.g. building surcharge),
  • To slow down a route for operational reasons, for example, to prevent "running" on a preceding train or
  • For the adaptation of theoretically calculated to practically given arrival / departure times.

Consideration of a given non-linear surcharge (e.g. building surcharge)

First of all, there is the omnipresent linear surcharge for each train, also called rule surcharge. This is usually about 3 to 9% and should never be less than 2%. A first, relatively coarse, individual adaptation of a route is possible by dividing the route into a plurality of running path sections and using a different control feed in each path section. This is a common approach in the case of strategic (long-term) planning, for which no specific surcharge criteria are known yet, but experience values for usual effective surcharges (sum of regulatory and building surcharges) are available.

If certain non-linear surcharges are given, you can enter rules for applying these surcharges under Traffic input data --> supplement times. Here, it can be defined that certain surcharges are to be applied for certain trains (depending on the type of train, direction of travel, lines and / or vehicles), always in a section or always on arrival at an operating point. These are, therefore, incremental or punctual surcharges, which can be given in absolute terms (in minutes) or relative (in percent).

To slow down a route for operational reasons

If adding a supplementary rule is not worthwhile, for instance, when there are only individual cases of application of surcharge, an individual surcharge may also be assigned to a train. To do this, in the Select Train mode (F1), click the train with the left mouse button (selecting it), then press the right mouse button and select the menu item Show arrival and departure times. Here, you can select the route section in which you want to assign the surcharge, right-click again and select the menu option Enter supplement. If you have marked a longer section of the route across intermediate sites, the entered surcharge is distributed evenly, distance-proportionally to all intermediate sections.

In the same way, you can change or delete an existing surcharge. At this point, please also note the menu items "Copy stays and surcharges" and "Insert...", which allow to transfer surcharges from one train to another.

Adaptation of theoretically calculated to practically given arrival / departure times

For this purpose, in the professional field of application, it is normally attempted to process the data exchange via interfaces, in order to avoid manual copying of driving or arrival / departure times. To exchange routes between the Railway Infrastructure Company and the TOC or between the TOC and regional authorities, interfaces between FBS and RailML®, TPN (DB Netz AG) or M-AMA (ÖBB Infrastruktur AG) have been created. If needed, feel free to contact us.

Thus, the manual adaptation of routes should be restricted to individual cases or the hobby area. In these individual cases, the above-mentioned individual surcharges can of course be used. However, there is also to the travel time conversion function, which is used to convert the travel times of a (freely definable) sample train into virtual permissible speeds. The advantage is that the travel times thus given can be calculated quasi-proportionally and qualitatively high by varying the train data (vehicle, load, etc.). As long as the same sample train is entered again, the same travel times are always obtained.

For more information on this function, please refer to this document (German PDF, 96 kB).

For the sake of completeness, the possibility of manually entering arrival / departure times as described in topic # 20899 should also be mentioned here, but their use is not recommended.

Last update on 2020-03-19 by iRFP Support.

Go back