NR+: UK’s first Integrated Digitised Rail Infrastructure Platform for Planning

列车的规划和调度是非常复杂的任务，由于其高度专业化和组合的性质。在英国，规划和调度所需的信息非常分散。Planting必须处理大量的请求，必须考虑无数的基础设施限制，咨询各种数据库和基于纸张的文档来执行任务，这在当今时代是非常令人沮丧和低效的。该项目中确定的机会是在我们的集成数字网络铁路升级套件（NR+Suite）产品上展示铁路货运规划流程，该产品包括NR+基础设施平台（NR+IP），NR+集成服务（NR+IS）和NR+应用程序集（NR+App）。NR+IP由英国铁路网络的全面综合数据库组成，其中包含可以在地图上查询和查看的所有属性和限制，以及当前的预定路线和计划活动。它由两个功能强大且高度可扩展的图形数据库组成，非常适合大型网络和路由问题，实时分析和AI。第一个数据库包含定义铁路网络、其能力和限制的所有数据。第二个包含时间表和线路可用性信息（包括工作时间表，短期增加，变化或取消以及工程项目的计划占有量）。NR+IP还将包含已执行行程的历史数据库。该项目有以下目标：在NI+IP中集成现有数据源;完成并验证数据以定义网络功能;与网络铁路和货运运营商进行现场试验，以验证、改进和展示平台和应用程序的可用性和价值;并开发大量API，以允许NI+IP中的数据被访问、利用和嵌入到铁路行业使用的其他第三方应用程序中。其新奇之处在于拥有一个独特的、最先进的、统一的、易于访问和维护的英国分散的铁路系统数字数据库，以及第一套用于安全和有效规划货运的综合应用程序。如果在演示过程中得到成功验证，NR+IP将成为一个独特的集成应用生态系统的基础，为货运和客运列车生成更高效、更有弹性和更安全的计划和时刻表，更好地管理干扰和延误，并传播信息。

Planning and scheduling of trains are very complex tasks due to their highly specialized and combinatorial nature. In the UK, the required information for planning and scheduling is very fragmented. Planners must deal with a large number of requests and must consider a myriad of infrastructure constraints, consulting a variety of databases and paper-based documents to perform their tasks which is quite frustrating and inefficient in this day and age. The opportunity identified in this project is to demonstrate the rail freight planning process on our integrated digital Network Rail Plus Suite (NR+Suite) of products that consists of the NR+ Infrastructure platform (NR+IP), the NR+ integration Services (NR+IS) and the NR+ set of applications (NR+App). The NR+IP consists of a comprehensive and integrated database of UK’s rail network, with all the attributes and constraints that can be queried and viewed on a map, together with the current set of scheduled routes and planned activities. It consists of two powerful and highly-scalable graph databases that are well suited for very large networks and routing problems, real-time analytics and AI. The first databases contains all the data that defines the rail network, its capabilities and constraints. The second contains schedules and line availability information (including Working Time Tables, short term additions, variations or cancellations and planned possessions for engineering works). NR+IP will also contains a history database of executed trips. The project has the following aims: integrate existing data sources in NI+IP ; complete and validate the data to define the network capabilities; perform live trials with Network Rail and freight operators to validate, improve, and demonstrate the usability and value of the platform and applications; and develop a number of APIs to allow the data in NI+IP to be accessed, utilised and embedded in other 3rd party applications used in the rail industry. The novelty is in having a unique state-of-the-art, consolidated, easily accessible and maintained digital database of UK’s fragmented rail system and a first set of integrated applications for the safe and efficient planning of freight. If successfully proven during the demonstrator, NR+IP could form the basis for a unique eco-system of integrated applications to generate more efficient, resilient and safer plans and schedules for freight and passenger trains, to better manage disturbances and delays and for dissemination of information.