An analytical approach for determining reserve times on metro systems

In recent years the growing interest in environmental issues has prompted researchers to investigate two main areas in the field of rail systems: how to improve performance in order to attract users from other transport modes with greater environmental impacts (such as private cars) and how to reduce energy consumption. On the latter issue, some procedures have been developed for determining suitable `green' driving profiles which are, however, subject to greater travel times. Since precise quantification is critically important, in this paper we propose an approach to determining all operational times analytically, including reserve times. Finally, the methodology is applied in the case of a real metro line for validating the proposal.