Design Project applied to Station Layout Planning

[Giugiaro]

Good afternoon everyone.

Between September 2018 and January 2019 I've had Railways as a subject during my exchange period in the University of Porto.
As an Industrial Design Student, and being the subject a Civil Engineering one, I negotiated with my teacher to replace the practical exam with a Design Project that would apply the theoretical knowledge acquired in the subject and my experience in design project into an existing problem that would require as much (or more) time and effort as the necessary studying for the exam.

The result is the design of a Station Layout for the Silvalde Railway Station, near Espinho, Portugal.
The idea was to replace the current stop with a branch station that would allow traffic to flow from Porto to a refurbished (and regauged) Vouga Line, and for passengers to safely change trains.

OneDrive: 2019-01-18 CF Apresentação Final
The above presentation is detailed enough to be read without additional documentation, as the project was sent for evaluation without a presencial conference.

I would also like to thank everyone who participated on the thread Branch stations for a college work for the shared case studies. It really helped a lot to come up and justify the solution that I designed!

I've been wanting to share this with you for months already, but given how unsure I was on where to create this thread, I decided to just place it under the Speculative Ideas sub-forum since a Design Project is mostly a speculative exercise. If the mods seem another place to be fit for this thread, please do. Thank you in advance.​

 

[37201xoIM]

Sorry to bump up an old thread, but what software did you use to simulate this? Looks impressive!

 

[Giugiaro]

Hi @37201xoIM
To simulate the flow of traffic and passengers for this design I used Urban Games's Transport Fever.

Although it is a game meant for entertainment, it does the job sufficiently well for what I needed. In the presentation, I did point out some of the limitations this software had.

Currently, there's a new version of the game, titled Transport Fever 2. Here's the respective thread on RailUKforums

 

[Peter Kelford]

To simulate the flow of traffic and passengers for this design I used Urban Games's Transport Fever.

That works as a traffic modeller? The signalling is a little strange as it doesn't normally understand how passing loops work.

 

[Giugiaro]

As I said, for what I was doing it was good enough, and I did mention the disadvantages of the Software, including the rather basic signalling system.

The advantage is that I could simulate traffic, networking and passenger flow in one single game.
I still did modification to the final project based on the observations made in Transport Fever. The addition of "Monte de Paramos" stop was one such modification.

 

[D365]

I haven’t played TpF or TpF2 yet, but I’ve spent a lot of time on Train Fever. Would be interested to read about how you used Tp, and in particular how you set up the cities.

 

[Giugiaro]

@D365 the file linked above adresses the use of TpF from pages 57 through 64.

The setting isn't very pretty (it was never meant to), unlike my other, TpF specific works, like Torres Vedras

 

[37201xoIM]

Thanks, Giugiaro - very interesting. Must admit (having only visited once as a tourist / crank, not as a transport planner!) that I would not be sure technically about regauging the Vouga line... and I guess it could conflicting with reopening the central section for a through service to Aveiro?

 

[Giugiaro]

@37201xoIM for what I've read it's either a complete reengineering of the northern portion of the Vouga line to accomodate a broader gauge, in somewhat the same standards as the (in discussion) Vale do Sousa line, ...

... or Metrobus.

The closed central section is to be permanently closed and removed. A temporary maintenance workshop is being built in Paços de Brandão to remove the need for trains to travel to Sernada do Vouga.
The south section will either remain metre gauge, or become metre+standard.

 

[37201xoIM]

Thanks a lot. That's a bit sad about the centre section (though I've never done that bit myself anyway!), not least in the context of the increasing recognition of the tourist potential of the south end of the line, using the heritage rolling stock already there plus that brought down from Regua.