Dev:Border between infrastructure managers and countries

Introduction

Border between infrastructure managers (handover point) is the point where legal responsibility changes between the infrastructure managers [TAF TAP TSI].

These IM borders can be found between countries and within one e.g. in case there are private and national railway infrastructure managers in a country. Sometimes there two railway lines meet each other.

There are some approaches to represent border between infrastructure managers in railML2 e.g. with one or two tracks. This is due to the reasoning that every track should be considered a separate system with its own properties defined. Being syntactically and semantically valid, they just came from two different users of railML^® 2.

When choosing approach with two tracks be aware of semantic constraints e.g. IS:003 "If two <track>s are connected, the @absPos values of the connected <trackBegin> and <trackEnd> must be identical" .

Example with two tracks

The photo shows an example of a ‘handover point’ at the Germany-Austria border. In the source code, shown below, there are two tracks managed two IMs ÖBB Infra () in Austria and DB InfraGO ( 🇩🇪) in Germany. Ownership is represented by <ownerChange> elements. Each of them have <ownerChange> positioned at the beginning of a track.

Further information about IMs is given in the <infrastructureManager> element and corresponding code list (link to the railML^® website).

Here also two railway lines meet each other. Therefore restriction IS:003 cannot be fulfilled because tracks belong to different mileage systems. This is justified via two railway lines referring to tracks.

Border between infrastructure managers ÖBB Infra () in Austria and DB InfraGO ( 🇩🇪) in Germany (By Renardo la vulpo/Image source/CC0)

<metadata>
  <organizationalUnits>
    <infrastructureManager id="ima01" code="DBN"/>
    <infrastructureManager id="ima02" code="ÖBB"/>
  </organizationalUnits>
</metadata>
..
<track id="tr01">
  <trackTopology>
    <trackBegin id="tb01" pos="0" absPos="0">..</trackBegin>
    <trackEnd id="te01" pos="59" absPos="59">..</trackEnd>
  </trackTopology>
  <trackElements>
    ..
    <ownerChange id="och01" pos="0" absPos="0" infrastructureManagerRef="ima01"/>
    ..
  </trackElements>
</track>
<track id="tr02">
  <trackTopology>
    <trackBegin id="tb02" pos="0" absPos="115">..</trackBegin>
    <trackEnd id="te02" pos="30" absPos="85">..</trackEnd>
  </trackTopology>
  <trackElements>
    ..
    <ownerChange id="och02" pos="0" absPos="115" infrastructureManagerRef="ima02"/>
    ..
  </trackElements>
</track>

<trackGroups>
  <line id="lin01" infrastructureManagerRef="ima01" name="Bahnstrecke München–Simbach">
    <trackRef ref="tr01"/>
  </line>
  <line id="lin02" infrastructureManagerRef="ima02" name="Bahnstrecke Neumarkt-Kallham–Braunau">
    <trackRef ref="tr02"/>
  </line>
</trackGroups>

Example with one track

Technically one track is also enough because there is no need for the second track to represent change. See example of one track representing a "Border between infrastructure managers" below.

The photo shows an example of a ‘handover point’ at the Germany-Czech Republic border on Děčín–Dresden-Neustadt_railway (). This line is operated by two different rail operating companies, Správa_železnic () in the Czech Republic and DB InfraGO ( 🇩🇪) in Germany, meaning there is a change in infrastructure managers. Mileage of the border was obtained from .

<metadata>
  <organizationalUnits>
    <infrastructureManager id="ima01" code="DBN"/>
    <infrastructureManager id="ima02" code="SZD"/>
  </organizationalUnits>
</metadata>
..
<track id="tr01">
  <trackTopology>
    <trackBegin id="tb01" pos="0" absPos="0">..</trackBegin>
    <trackEnd id="te01" pos="65986" absPos="65986">..</trackEnd>
  </trackTopology>
  <trackElements>
    ..
    <ownerChange id="och01" pos="0" absPos="0" infrastructureManagerRef="ima01"/>
    <ownerChange id="och02" pos="11859" absPos="11859" infrastructureManagerRef="ima02" name="Bahnverw.grenze Bad Schandau Gr"/>
    ..
  </trackElements>
</track>