Ratakapasiteetin määrittäminen ilmakuvatulkinnan avulla

This research describes how railway and rail yard capacity can be determined using aerial image interpretation. The study also describes how parameters used in capacity modelling can be extracted from aerial images. Additionally, commonly used railway capacity modelling methods are described in the study's method section. The interpretation and modelling methods used in this study were tested by interpreting structures of an aerial image taken from the Tampere rail yard. The rail yard's classification and receiving capacity was then estimated a method based on an artificial time schedule on Excel worksheet. The accuracy of the image interpretation and capacity estimation were evaluated using literary sources and interviewing personnel of the rail yard. In railway capacity modelling, the most important interpretation targets were concluded to be the evaluation of the maximum route speed, maximum length of train, axel weight limitations, and determination of the length of block sections on the route. The attributes related to speed, weight and length were concluded to be interpretable by studying the rail curvature, structure and switch types used on the route. The type of rolling stock and its freight spotted at the route were also concluded to be good interpretation keys for these purposes. Locating the signal posts by their shadows and balises related to them was concluded to be useful for the interpretation of the block lengths. Interpreting the arrival inspections process and the size and usage of the work resources in the rail yard was concluded to be important in rail yard capacity modelling. The usage of the rail yard structures and yards could be successfully interpreted based on the relative locations of the structures within the yard and the arrangement of the switches. The determination of the most likely traffic directions from the classification yard, accurate interpretation of the usage length of the storage tracks, number of switch engines operating in the yard and understanding of the inspection processes were concluded to be difficult to extract from the information derived from image interpretation. However, the most probable usage and performance of the switch engines could be accurately estimated based on interpretation of the switch leads and switches. The rail yard capacity estimation method based on a manual time schedule was concluded to be suitable for the theoretical capacity estimation of the rail yards. The method was able to produce accurate performance statistics after the inspection process was changed to represent real-life processes used in the yard. The capacity estimation method used in this study can be applied to any rail yard representing a configuration similar to the Tampere rail yard.