Cruise control scheduling of heavy haul trains

An optimal offline scheduling of the cruise control of heavy haul trains is introduced. The objective of the scheduling is to minimize the in-train forces, which are the most important for the safety driving and maintenance cost of excessively long trains. The constraints of throttling and braking are taken into consideration. With the gradual progresses of implementing electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) braking systems in practice, three control strategies are proposed. Simulation results of these strategies on different types of trains are given. The ECP braking systems demonstrate superb performance compared with pneumatic braking systems.