NETWORKS ON RAILSANALYSIS OF RAILROAD CONNECTIONS IN THE WESTERN

UNITED STATES

PRESENTATION: SAM DELANEY

CS 765

14 OCT 2014

BREAKDOWN

• The problem – A quick review

• Data collection

• Data cleaning

• Plan of Action

• Wrap up and Review

• Questions

THE PROBLEM!WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT AGAIN?

WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO DO?

• Given the state of the network today…

• Can we provide network analysis?

• Is any of the analysis useful?

• For government agencies?

• For private sector?

• For educational purposes?

• Compared to the network of old…

• Can we predict future layouts?

• How and why did it evolve the way it did?

WHY IS THIS PROBLEM IMPORTANT?

• Business application

• Government taxation and regulation

• Military assets

DATA COLLECTIONWHERE DO WE LOOK?

RAILROADS MAPPED

• Waybill

• Provided by US Govt

• Latest data – 2012

• Public report

• Private report

• Class I railroads

• Tonnage

• Revenue

• Carload

DATA DATA DATA

• CTA

• Contains every railroad route in the US, Canada, and Mexico

• Active since 1993

• Developed exclusively for:

• Network Programming

• Traffic Analysis

• Mapping Applications

• Jackpot?

OTHER PARAMETERS

• American Association of Railroads (AAR)

• Up to date data

• Superior customization

• Does most of the heavy lifting

DATA CLEANINGSO MANY NUMBERS… MUCH ANALYSIS…

WHO’S INVITEDClass I Railroads

Class II Railroads

HOW DATA IS FORMATTED

• Represent the physical rail system in digital form

• Geographical

• NDR files – Contains location nodes

• LLR files – Contains link attributes

• LCR files – Contains Link locations

• Interline

• ILN file – contains locations where traffic is transferred between railroad companies

• History

• DAT file – contains locations ancestors and descendants

TOOLS FOR THE JOB

• RHA – reformats files into a Q (railroad) network

• RQCFS – writes the resulting RHA output info GIS format based on a specific date.

• Very useful for evolution of network

• GIS – Mapping software to observe the rail network

• PANJEK – Network analysis tool we all know and love

SO MANY NODES

THE PLANSHOVE IT ALL INTO PAJEK

ANALYSIS BREAKDOWN :GENERAL NETWORK

PHYSICAL NETWORK (TRACKS)

• Small world?

• Diameter

• Main hubs• Betweeness

• Closeness

TRAIN NETWORK (ROUTES)

• Small world?

• Diameter

• Main hubs

• Betweeness

• Closeness

SAMPLE NETWORKS

ANALYSIS BREAKDOWN:EVOLUTION• What hubs have gained/lost betweeness? Clustering?

• Has the diameter changed?

• Is it power law growth?

• Link to factors

CAN FIX?• Ultimately can we “improve”

the network

• How well it does it compare to:

• The airline network?

• The freeway?

• What is the cost ramification for these changes?

THE WRAP UPCONNECT THE DOTS

WRAP UP

• What was the problem?

• How are we going to get data?

• How do we make that data useful?

• How are we going to analyze this “useful” data?

QUESTIONS?