Redundancy Analysis of the Railway Network of Hungary

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the redundancy and resilience of Hungary's railway network using a weighted directed graph and introduces a redundancy index to identify critical alternative routes, highlighting areas for infrastructure improvement.

Contribution

It applies a novel redundancy index to evaluate the Hungarian railway network's robustness and identifies key lines needing upgrades for better resilience.

Findings

Network structure is generally good but some lines are single tracked and slow.

Lines with highest redundancy are mostly single tracked with low speeds.

Upgrading tracks and electrification can enhance network resilience.

Abstract

Available alternative routes on which traffic can be rerouted in the case of disruptions are vital for transportation networks. Line sections with less traffic under normal operational conditions but with increased importance in the case of disruptions are identified in the railway network of Hungary by using a weighted directed graph. To describe the goodness of the individual alternative routes the so-called redundancy index is used. The results show that the structure of the network is good, but the lines with the highest redundancy (lines No. 80, 2, 4 and 77 according to the numbering of the national railway operator, M\'AV) are mostly single tracked and in many cases the line speed is low. The building of additional tracks and electrifying these lines while still maintaining the existing diesel locomotives for the case of disruptions of the electric support are the keys to make the performance of the rather dense railway network of Hungary sustainable.