Railway Engineering: Timetable Planning and Control, Artificial Intelligence and Externalities

Abstract

This chapter is a case study of the dissemination of railway engineering research in Latin America developed by a railway engineering research group. The leader of the group is a female researcher. The authors aim to inspire to other women researchers in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries who are trying to develop research in IT areas, many times facing serious difficulties, incomprehension, and great challenges. This chapter is divided in set sections like introduction, background, development of railway engineering research. This third section is divided into subsections like timetable planning and trains control, characterization of Panama metro line 1, dwelling times, fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence, social-economics railway externalities, and environmental railway externalities. The fourth section presents the results of the relationship between research activity and teaching of railway engineering obtained in this case study. Finally, the authors present a brief vision about future and emerging regional trends about railway engineering projects.