Assessment of the Railway Line Capacity on the Railway Network Using a New Innovative Method

Nowadays, it is essential to contribute to sustainable transport to the maximum extent possible. Therefore, a significant emphasis is placed on environmentally friendly modes of transport, especially railway transport. For this reason, it is very important to ensure sufficient capacity of the railway infrastructure and high-quality railway transport operations. Railway transport control, operation, and management bring several specifications and unique features. One of the most important things is to correctly determine the capacity and throughput of the railway infrastructure because it must be clear how many trains can be operated on a concrete railway line for a certain time. Therefore, the issue of railway infrastructure capacity is a relatively broad and complex topic. Currently, there are several methods and ways to determine it. However, for scientific progress and research in this field, it is necessary to look for new scientific and professional solutions to the mentioned issue with effective implementation into practice. The mentioned contribution deals with new modern progressive methods of determining the capacity of the railway line using simulations and software applications. The main objective is to establish a methodology, specifically a heuristic procedure, in which specific partial steps of a new method of determining the capacity of railway infrastructure are defined. Subsequently, this new way of determining it is directly applied and explained on the specific railway line Bratislava–Komárno, which is located in southwestern Slovakia. The first part of the paper contains a theoretical framework and a brief explanation of the issue, including current used methods, as well as current scientific and professional manuscripts and papers that deal with this topic. Subsequently, the mentioned railway line is described, including the current operational problems arising on it due to insufficient current capacity. As part of the results, the proposal part is presented, including a universal heuristic procedure, which includes partial steps of the new methodology with application to the mentioned railway line. The discussions present its theoretical and practical benefits and topics for the further development of this issue. However, the most significant benefit will be the more effective identification of bottlenecks in railway operations, which will improve its smoothness and will have a significant impact on sustainable development and its aspects in the field of transport.