Energy Efficiency Improvement on Railway Lines: An Overview

Abstract

Greater efficiency in the consumption of energy in the transport sector would mean lower emissions of CO₂ and other gases and particles, which contribute to climate change. One of the ways to reduce the impact that the transport sector has on climate change turns out to be the achievement of services with a more efficient consumption of energy per passenger-km or t-km transported. Energy consumption has been an ongoing concern in the railway sector practically since its inception. There has always been an interest in finding solutions to reduce it, such as improvements in rolling stock design and the use of regenerative braking which will not be analyzed in this article, and optimal train movement, operation and timetabling, and infrastructure design. This article analyses the existing methodologies that allow the improvement of energy efficiency, and we verified that the developed studies focus more on LRT and Metro systems, and existing infrastructures, namely Urban Rail Transit, characterized by high levels of traffic and energy consumption. However, regarding the analysis of conventional railway infrastructure characteristics and design from an energy efficiency point of view, we found that less has been done relative to strategies to improve energy efficiency.