Institute of Transportation, MOTC

        Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) provides both intercity transportation and regional transportation services. However, these two transportation service stopping patterns and passenger service attributes are different. Under the limitation of line capacity, different types of conflicts may
occur, resulting in different corresponding rescheduling strategies. Due to the low operating margin, once the train operation encounters disturbances, the delay could be spread to the subsequent trains, which is called secondary delay.
        In order to reduce the secondary delay, this study firstly understands the dispatching rules and strategies of the dispatching experts for the disturbance, and uses the Petri Nets method to simulate the various scenarios. Petri Nets simulations show that shortening the block interval is of great help to the secondary delay improvement. It is essential to reserve suitable lines to avoid or  pass through, so as to avoid reducing the benefit of shortening the length of the block interval. Future research suggests that TRA can analyze the impact of passenger transfer demand and time-consuming of switch on secondary delay for subsequent rescheduling improvement strategies.