The disruption at Rastatt and its effects on the Swiss railway system

Abstract

A railway track near Rastatt, Germany, lowered on 12 August 2017 and caused a complete blockage of a sector of a major rail corridor, which lasted until 1 October 2017. This track closure had severe effects on the railway freight and passenger transport. This work investigates the effects on the Swiss railroad network, using openly available realized operation data. The behavior of the delays before, during and after the disruption is investigated on three different levels. First, the delay of arriving trains to Basel SBB, as it can be seen as the input delay into the Swiss railway system. Secondly, it is investigated how the delay evolves on the Swiss intercity and interregional lines in short distance (i.e. first stop) and thirdly how this delay evolves over the course of the lines. The results display a consistent improvement of punctuality during the disruption period, which however decreases when considering stations farther away from Basel SBB. This can be explained by the fact that during the disruption period, trains arriving from Germany at Basel SBB exhibit, due to the shorter running distance, significantly lower delays than during other periods. The improved punctuality is therefore a result of a reduced delay propagation of the trains arriving from Germany. The effects of this severe and long lasting disruption can be quantified even in some spatial and temporal distance. It can be used as an example to test theoretical delay forecasting models, or examine train network complexity and interconnectivity.