The Dutch railway system is one of the most crowded in the world and, while there are surprisingly few delays in the schedule, it could benefit enormously from autonomous trains.

“There are so many trains on the grid that the distance between them is relatively short,” said Rick van der Mand, project manager of ProRail’s autonomous driving experiment. “It’s so busy that congestion is never far away. Automation may prevent that.”

Testing will start later in 2018 on a stretch of railway in the north of the Netherlands, as well as on the infamous Betuweroute that runs from Rotterdam to Germany.

Though the Netherlands privatised the national railway system in 2005, ProRail is solely appointed to maintain the country’s railway infrastructure. Meanwhile, several different train operators drive on the 7,021km of tracks.

That leads to a medley of operators and providers on the grid, with principal railway operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) controlling the majority of the routes and a handful of smaller operators – including Syntus, Arriva and Connexxion – operating small stretches in mostly rural areas. That fragmentation makes automation an attractive solution.

It’s hoped the two areas reserved for testing will benefit from the experiment, especially the Betuweroute – the special track reserved for cargo transportation coming from and going into the rest of Europe. 

“That’s the point where freight trains have to insert themselves into the already busy Dutch rail network,” said van der Mand. “Automatic driving can be a useful alternative to implementing expensive upgrades to infrastructure.”

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.computerweekly.com