Annual report 2024 Product Management Review 2024

Product Management Review 2024

Viriato Highlights From 2024

As part of the ongoing development that we undertake to improve Viriato for our users, amongst many tactical improvements in 2024 these are some of the features we have implemented within the software.

Program framework:

  • Viriato now uses Microsoft's .NET 8 runtime in place of the legacy .NET Framework 4.8.1. This provides users with the long-term assurance that Viriato is maintainable for the future.
  • To improve security, all program components are now digitally signed with a certificate to guarantee the authenticity of the software.

Path search and algorithms:

  • The path search module now includes additional settings allowing finer control over how the conflict free paths are found. These include settings which control how much additional time can be added to a train run, whether reserves should be kept for performance purposes, the ability to ignore capacity restrictions in nodes where the user believes sufficient capacity will be available regardless of the analysis, a problem analysis mode which identifies the nodes with insufficient capacity when conflict free paths cannot be found and the improved selection of multiple trains for the case where the user is inserting different trains sequentially into the timetable.
  • A new platform assignment finder module has been added which can search for conflict free platform assignments in stations for existing timetables using the Gurobi solver.

Train planning:

  • Line numbers of trains can now be displayed in the graphic timetable and platform occupation views.
  • The topology display in the platform occupation view now indicates the direction of train movements enabling a clear overview of activities in major nodes.
  • Commercial trains when viewed in the customer timetable now indicate which operational trains form them.
  • Timetable remarks can now apply to the whole train, with changes possible for individual parts of the train run.

Data exchange:

  • The railML importer has been improved for the case where the infrastructure described in the railML does not fully match that in the existing Viriato database. The user now has more options for how to handle nodes that a train is planned to visit, but which are not present in the infrastructure which improves the consistency of imported trains. Also, if detailed routing information for trains is not included in the input railML, such as within areas with complex layouts, the route-finding options have been improved and now offers the user a choice of several different strategies.  
  • The railML 2.2 importer now handles defined remarks in the train path and timetable nodes, and when working with TAF/TAP-TSI the export includes relevant information from the standard in the trains.

MoD (Microscopy-on-Demand):

  • The Microscopy-on-Demand (MoD) workflow has been improved to allow users to work with mixed models where only a portion of the infrastructure is fully mapped to a microscopic model in an external system, and for the remainder of the model the data is held purely mesocopically.  This enables the use of larger models where the detailed analysis effort is focussed on areas of specific interest, but the timetabled trains studied cover the whole network.
  • In order to work with Viriato Enterprise, MoD has been made more flexible and allows user selectable behaviours when the external microscopic model differs from the Viriato one. This includes the ability to use infrastructure variants in Viriato against the different microscopic models.
  • The topology viewer has been extended to show signals and stopping points allowing more detailed visualisation of the behaviour of the train on the network.

Trip time analysis:

  • The trip time analysis module has now been extended to enable commercial trains to be opened from the analysis view as well as operational trains. This allows users who are working with splitting and joining trains to see clearly which train portion the passengers travelled on.

Rolling stock and running time calculator:

  • Rolling stock definitions now have a dated validity, allowing improved management of rolling stock by creating multiple versions of a vehicle which differ during the timetable period. Only rolling stock which is valid on the day of service being planned can be used.
  • The running time calculator now has a user configurable default speed for the case where the speed profiles are not fully defined. This allows the user to use the running time calculator on infrastructure sections without defined speed profiles with the flexibility to choose their own value.

Robustness:

  • The robustness analysis can now be carried out only for a user-selected specific region of the Viriato infrastructure, allowing the study to focus on the critical area without having to model the entire network with the consequential performance implications on the calculation time.
  • To improve the understanding of results produced, the delay evolution of incidents and their consequential effects during a robustness analysis can now be exported to a spreadsheet, along with the existing outputs, allowing for detailed pro-processing analyses to be undertaken.