Numerical Assessment of the Railway Network Functioning

Before making a decision to invest in railway lines, many different analyzes are carried out. Issues related to the assessment and comparison of individual railway lines so far have been addressed many times. Previous research in this area has involved determining the factors that describe the analyzed railway line, influence the volume of transport on a specific line or define what parameters it should meet. Later, the weights of individual factors were determined. In previous studies, they were set using expert assessments, based on consultations with decision-making centers, or autors of research imposed them arbitrarily. This publication presents a new, numerical method for analyzing the efficiency of railway lines. This method will define quantitative socio-economic and infrastructural factors that affect the movement of passenger and freight trains. Then, the impact of individual factors affecting to train traffic on the railway lines selected for comparison will be determined. For this aim partial correlation coefficients will by used. Based on the obtained results, the weights of these factors will be determined entirely analytically. This action avoids the use of expert assessments. Using the obtained weights, it is possible to compare selected railway lines taking into account quantitative criteria. These lines can be located in any region of the world, but the obtained results will vary. After obtaining the weights analytically, it is possible to use modified multi-criteria analysis methods for comparison. Methods were used such as the zero unitarization method, the AHP method and the TOPSIS method. The use of this methods allows for comparison of railway lines in passenger and freight transport in a completely analytical way. Such assessments, with appropriate data, can be performed automatically.