Modeling passenger train delay distributions: evidence and implications

Anna Bergström and Niclas Krüger

No 2013:3, Working papers in Transport Economics from CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI)

Abstract: This paper addresses the lack of reliability within the Swedish rail network by identifying passenger train delay distributions. Arrival delays are analyzed in detail using data provided by the Swedish Transport Administration, covering all train departures and arrivals during 2008 and 2009. The paper identifies vulnerabilities by size, space and time in the network. Our results show that the delay distribution seems to be plagued by low probability high impact events. A major share of all delay time is associated with the tail of the delay distribution, indicating that extreme delays cannot be neglected when prioritizing between measures improving rail infrastructure. Delays are not only concentrated in size, but also concentrated in space and time and seem to follow a precise power law with respect to days and an exponential distribution with regard to stations. Moreover, we also examine the link between capacity usage and expected delay over different time scales.

Keywords: Reliability; Vulnerability; Value of travel time variability; Distribution fitting; Exponential distribution; Power law distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H54 R42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2013-05-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tre and nep-ure
Note: Published in: The 5th International Symposium on Transportation Network Reliability (INSTR2012), Hong Kong, China, December 18-19, 2012, pp. 61-61
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http://www.transportportal.se/swopec/CTS2013-3.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Modeling Passenger Train Delay Distributions - Evidence and Implications (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2013_003

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