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US Amtrak Network

Major Josiah PickettCaptain Philip Zlatsin

Lieutenant Brett Robblee

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Background

• Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ITSEA)

• Demand for High-Speed Rail (HSR) in the US.• Current Economy• Emerging Market

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Background

• New vision for High-speed Passenger Rail throughout the US.

• Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) launches the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) Program

• POTUS Goals

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Objectives

• Model the current network.• Determine a development plan based on

budget (distance to improve) while minimizing the cumulative total time traveled.

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Network Development

• Current Network• Design Network

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Current Network

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Model

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Input Data

• Nodes: Stations with annual ridership

• Edges: Existing rail lines between stations with distances.

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Assumptions

•

• People choose the shortest path.

• No capacity issues.

2,Distance BA

BA RidershipRidershipBtoAfromRiders

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Basic model

New-YorkChicago

San-Francisco

50 hours

300 hours

Miami300 hours

200 hours

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Basic model

New-YorkChicago

San-Francisco

50 hours

300 hours

Miami300 hours

200 hours

1M go to NY0.5M go to Miami0.5M go to SF

1.5M come to Chicago (from other places)

2M want to Chicago3M want to Miami1M want to SF

5M come to NY (from other places)

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Basic Model• Multi-commodity min-cost flow.

• ci,j – time to get from station i to j.

• yi,jk – amount of people from type k (final destination) that go

between i and j

• Objective function (MOP) – minimize the total amount of hours spent.

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Basic model results

• Preferred routes• Total amount of time spent on the train.

But we are interested in the future!

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Design model assumptions

• Speed on the new rail is 150 mph– (75 mph on regular rail)[1]

• New rails don’t change people’s behavior.

• Every old rail can be improved to a fast one.

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Design model

New-YorkChicago

50 hours

Miami

200 hours

New-York’Chicago’

Miami’

100 hours

25 hours

Sum distance of new arcs < X

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• yi’,j’ k – flow on new rail between i and j.

• xi’,j’ – should we build new rail between i and j? • M – sufficiently large number

Design Model formulation

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Results

• Original Model:– Cumulative time riders spend per year on AMTRAK

trains in our model sums to 44M hours, 5000 years.

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200 Mile Budget

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400 Mile Budget

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600 Mile Budget

Plus LA to Irvine, CA

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800 Mile Budget

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1000 Mile Budget

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1200 Mile Budget

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1400 Mile Budget

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1600 Mile Budget

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1800 Mile Budget

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2000 Mile Budget

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2600 Mile Budget

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3000 Mile Budget

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3600 Mile Budget

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4000 Mile Budget

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0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

2200

2400

2600

2800

3000

3200

3400

3600

3800

4000

20,000,000

25,000,000

30,000,000

35,000,000

40,000,000

45,000,000

Cumulative Annual Number of Hours Riders Spend on Amtrak Trains

Amount of Rail Upgraded to High Speed Rail (Miles)

• At 4000 miles, reduced to 58.5% of the of the original cumulative time. • Approximately 2900 years

Bos

. ->D

.C. ;

Chi

.-> M

il.; G

reat

er L

A

NYC

-> D

.C.

70%

81%

58.5%

Bos

. ->

Mil.

; Gre

ater

LA

64%

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0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 1000020,000,000

25,000,000

30,000,000

35,000,000

40,000,000

45,000,000

Cumulative Annual Number of Hours Riders Spend on Amtrak Trains

Amount of Rail Upgraded to High Speed Rail (Miles)

• At 10,000 miles, reduced to 52.4% of the of the original cumulative time. • Approximately 2600 years

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Validation

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4,000 Mile Budget

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10,000 Mile Budget

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Conclusions

• Up to a budget of 4000 miles – results match!• 10,000 miles – results match with some

differences.• Possible reasons:– Partial Model (10% of the nodes)– Different objective functions– Assumptions

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Future Research• Better estimations:– Ridership

• Per station• Between stations

– Speed on different rails

• New optional rails and stations• Will new rails change ridership?• Other objective functions:– Accessibility– Cost– Effect on enviroment

• Nested design

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Other Attempts

• Less successful models:– Max flow vs Multi Commodity– Not weighting distances– Interdiction – New rails– Constraints on number of arcs (instead of mileage)

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Bibliography• Government, U. (2008, 12, 15). High-Speed Rail Experience in the United States.

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/16/785/Amtrak-High_Speed_Rail-A_National_Perspective.pdf.

• Government, U. (2012, 11 03). High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program. Retrieved 11 18, 2013, from Federal Railroad Administration: http://www.fra.dot.gov/rpd/passenger/2243.shtml

• Nagasaki, H. (2012, 08 27). USA Rail Guide. Retrieved 11 18, 2012, from http://trainweb.org/usarail/index.html

• Wiki. (2012, 11 18). AMTRAK. Retrieved 11 18, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak

• Wikipedia. (2012, 11 15). High-Speed Rail in the United States. Retrieved 11 18, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_the_United_States

• Wikipedia. (2012, 11 5). List of suburban and commuter rail systems. Retrieved 11 19, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suburban_and_commuter_rail_systems