What is TTR – Timetable and Capacity Redesign for Smart Capacity Management?
The TTR project was developed jointly by European infrastructure managers and railway undertakings (RUs) under the leadership of the stakeholder organisations RNE (Railnet Europe) and FTE (Forum Train Europe) with the aim of providing more and better infrastructure capacity for RUs and at the same time enabling infrastructure managers to make optimal use of their capacity.
Why is TTR needed in Europe?
The rail sector is confronted with an increase of rail passenger transport and rail freight. European transport policy also envisages a further significant increase in the modal split through the Green Deal. This development presents both infrastructure managers and RUs with unprecedented challenges in the supply of capacity.
There are essentially two ways to meet these challenges:
- physical expansion of infrastructure
- optimised usage of existing infrastructure
The TTR project starts with the latter – namely to achieve optimisation on the existing infrastructure and to continuously apply the TTR concept to newly constructed lines as well.
What is hindering today a Europe-wide, consistent and market-oriented Capacity Supply?
Capacity planning in Europe is mainly based on annual timetables with fixed requesting dates, in some cases not fully digitised and with a strong national focus. When fully implemented, TTR should improve international, market-driven and flexible access to infrastructure capacity through systematisation and supply of capacities according to traffic types. This requires a strong support by digitalising of the processes.
What is the basic idea behind TTR?
The concept of TTR is based on two basic ideas, which are to provide more (in terms of volume) and better (in terms of quality and flexibility) infrastructure capacity:
- Systematisation and partitioning
The infrastructure manager dedicates capacity (including also Temporary Capacity Restrictions-TCRs) according to traffic types and products (requesting times). In doing so, current market inputs from RUs as well as other data sources (e.g., traffic studies, historical data) are used. - Steering requesting behaviour
The supply of capacity according to traffic types in the form of a market-oriented supply enables the applicants to request at a time when the actual demand is known. Economic incentive systems enable that the partitioned capacity is being used efficiently by avoiding blocked capacities through preservation.
TTR – a win-win for the rail sector!
With TTR, RUs benefit from ...
- sufficient, stable and demand-oriented capacity as well as easier, digitalised access through the partitioning of capacity for all traffic types (passenger and freight) by the infrastructure manager,
- greater flexibility for all applicants through additional capacity products, also beyond annual timetables and fixed requesting dates,
- the coordinated Capacity Supply throughout Europe,
- long-term and harmonised TCR planning throughout Europe.
Infrastructure managers benefit from ...
- optimal use of their infrastructure and reduction of wasted capacity,
- strengthening the reliability for planning and regulation through standardised and transparent processes.
How does capacity planning work under the TTR concept?
Capacity planning is carried out in three consecutive phases both in time and content. A characteristic of the TTR concept is that the granularity of the content is continuously rising towards the final Capacity Supply. The individual TTR elements are as follows:
- Capacity Strategy (publication 3 years before the working timetable change at X-36)
- Capacity Model (publication 1.5 years before the working timetable change at X-18)
- Capacity Supply (publication approx. 1 year before the working timetable change at X-11)
Click image to enlarge