Andrew Nash, Senior Researcher at the Carl Ritter von Ghega Institute for Integrated Mobility Research, made a presentation titled Agile Simulation in Planning and Operating London’s Elizabeth Line at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington DC on 12 January 2023.

The presentation describes a new process for using simulation in railway planning and operations that embeds simulation experts within the planning team. This enables railways to use simulation much more effectively than today’s approach which normally consists of developing plans in one process and analysing them in a separate process. The new method breaks down silos and improves railway planning and operations.

The presentation begins with an introduction to simulation, describes London’s Elizabeth line (one of the most important railway projects in recent years), provides examples of how agile simulation was used successfully at the Elizabeth line, and presents conclusions.

The presentation is based on a paper co-authored by Georgio Medeossi of trenolab, and Mike Bagshaw of MTR UK that has been submitted to RailBelgrade 2023: 10th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis. The TRB presentation is available here.