The International Conference on System Design and Operation in Railways and other Transit Systems (COMPRAIL) has become the most successful conference in its field in the world since it started in 1987. This book contains papers accepted for presentation at the 12th meeting in the series, held in Beijing, China in 2010.

Rail transport has many advantages over other systems in terms of capacity, punctuality, being weather resistant, savings in fuel and land, and fairly low pollution. It is a low-carbon emission transport mode and ought to be the backbone of any regional and city comprehensive travel system. Many countries have recently become interested in using high speed railways, resulting in up to now, more than 10,000 km of high speed track in the world. By 2020, the total length of high speed railways will reach 16,000 km in China alone.

Safety is one of the central topics of rail systems, which together with efficiency represents the main targets. Computer based technologies have always played an important role in the safety and efficiency of transit systems. These topics are discussed in this book and it is expected that they will become even more important in future COMPRAIL meetings for the designers, manufacturers, operators and professionals attending this conference series.

The above are just some of the themes presented in this book, which contains a substantial number of sections covering topics such as planning, timetable and operation quality, safety and security, advanced train control, rolling stock, train regulation, communication, power supply, catenary, train location, obstacle detection and collision analysis.