Priority

Of trains. Traditional scale of importance of trains in traffic management, based on which criteria are defined to follow in the regulation of the same, following disturbances or delays, in order to favor the movement of certain trains over others, or not to excessively penalize some trains in the determination of intersections and / or precedence. Once based on the traditional table of mutual tolerances, which established how many minutes at most a train of lower priority could be penalized, in terms of additional delay, with respect to one minute of train delay of higher priority, said concepts of relative importance of the trains have been diminishing over time, due to the practical difficulties of implementation and control (especially in the case of complex situations involving more trains and large areas of disturbance), and for the variability of the same criteria of Regulation of traffic, according to the time of day, line and other transport situations and priorities. Furthermore, the contracting of the infrastructure access relationship, between the Grid Operator and the Transport Companies, imposes contractual criteria to be dealt with more generally about the quality of the service provided, probably through economic mechanisms (penalties) based on direct or induced delays , attributable to the various subjects (infrastructure and / or transport). The management of the priorities and of the control of the delays must also increasingly rely on functions inherent to the automation systems for railway circulation. See reports of mutual tolerance