An energy-efficient operation strategy for high-speed trains

This paper studies the optimal operation strategy to minimize the energy consumption of high-speed train running between adjacent stations. The characteristics of high-speed trains, including traction characteristic and regenerative braking, and the railway geographical conditions are fully considered in the dynamic model. Based on discretization analysis of the route, a novel optimal operating strategy consisting of a global optimization process and a further optimization process is developed to reduce the energy consumption. In the global optimization process, genetic algorithm is applied to search the optimal speed at each end of subsection in fixed time. Then, the optimization strategy is further studied to search the speed serial to improve the train operation process. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed operating strategy, the optimization strategy is simulated, and the operation performance of CRH-3 is tested. In comparison to regular train operation strategies, the proposed operation strategy is proved to obtain the favorable results for high-speed trains. And the simulating operation results meet the requirements of time, comfort and energy consumption.