Railway emergency plan modeling based on Petri net

Yuqing Ji (Shanghai Key Laboratory of Rail Infrastructure Durability and System Safety, School of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China)
Dongxiu Ou (Shanghai Key Laboratory of Rail Infrastructure Durability and System Safety, School of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China)
Lei Zhang (Shanghai Key Laboratory of Rail Infrastructure Durability and System Safety, School of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China and Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Tongji University, Shanghai, China)
Chenkai Tang (Shanghai Key Laboratory of Rail Infrastructure Durability and System Safety, School of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China)
Visarut Phichitthanaset (Shanghai Key Laboratory of Rail Infrastructure Durability and System Safety, School of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China)

Smart and Resilient Transportation

ISSN: 2632-0487

Article publication date: 26 August 2021

Issue publication date: 14 December 2021

835

Abstract

Purpose

When a railway emergency occurs, it often leads to unexpected consequences, especially for trains of higher speed and larger passenger flow. Therefore, the railway emergency plan, a pre-established plan to deal with emergencies, plays an important role in reducing injuries and losses. However, the existing railway emergency plans remain as plain-text documents, requiring lots of manual work to capture the important regulations. This paper aims to propose a visualized, formal and digital railway emergency plan modeling method based on hierarchical timed Petri net (HTPN), which is also of better interpretability.

Design/methodology/approach

First, the general railway emergency plan was analyzed. Second, the HTPN-based framework model for the general railway emergency plan was proposed. Then, the instantiated model of electric multiple units rescue emergency plan was built by ExSpect, a Petri net simulation tool.

Findings

The experiments show that the proposed model is more digital and of better readability, visualization and performability, and, meanwhile, can generally conform to the practice well, offering a promising reference for future analysis of the optimization of railway emergency plans.

Originality/value

This study offers a promising reference for future analysis of the optimization of railway emergency plans.

Keywords

Citation

Ji, Y., Ou, D., Zhang, L., Tang, C. and Phichitthanaset, V. (2021), "Railway emergency plan modeling based on Petri net", Smart and Resilient Transportation, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 235-248. https://doi.org/10.1108/SRT-01-2021-0001

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Yuqing Ji, Dongxiu Ou, Lei Zhang, Chenkai Tang and Visarut Phichitthanaset.

License

Published in Smart and Resilient Transportation. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence maybe seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode


1. Introduction

Because of its characteristics of being convenient, comfortable, environmentally friendly and higher speed but lower cost, railways are very popular in China and have been developed rapidly in the past two decades. China’s 2019 Railway Statistical Bulletin (2020) shows that in 2019, the number of passengers sent by the railway is 3.66 billion, an increase of 8.4% over the previous year, and the scale of China’s railway network has reached a mileage of 139,000 kilometers, which have put higher and higher requirements on the safety, reliability and efficiency of the railway system. Besides, according to the report of the European Commission, it is expected that railway passenger transportation in Europe will be doubled in 2020 (Atamuradov et al., 2009).

Railway emergency management, which is an integration of multiple technologies to maintain the safety and normal operation of the railway, is of great significance to the railway system, in which failures and emergencies will inevitably occur. When a railway emergency occurs, e.g. equipment failure, railway traffic accidents and natural disasters, it often leads to unexpected consequences, including injuries and deaths, economic losses and traffic interruption. Therefore, in the face of emergencies, the railway emergency plan, a pre-established response plan to deal with emergencies, plays an important role in reducing injuries and losses for the railway and passengers.

However, the existing railway emergency plans have certain limitations in readability and operability, e.g. most railway emergency plans remain as plain-text documents, requiring lots of manual work to read and capture the important regulations and procedures. Besides, generally, it tends to be more difficult for the assessment and validation of emergency plans, urging us to build more visualized, formal and digital ones (Zhou, 2013). Therefore, the establishment of a formal and digital railway emergency plan is of great significance to improve its readability, performability and visualization.

To solve the readability problem, Canós et al. (2004) turned the emergency plan of a subway system into a multimedia software system. According to the drill exercises, both the emergency response time and human errors have been significantly reduced. But there are two essential requirements, i.e. multimedia storage and delivery must be provided and the navigation of the available information is necessary.

For emergency plan modeling, Zhong et al. (2010) established a Petri net-based model for China’s typical urban emergency response system (UERS) for performance analysis, using the Markov chain. And their results conform to the practical operation of China’s current UERS. Ter Mors et al. (2005) developed a mathematical modeling framework for disaster planning, which can capture the most important aspects of emergency response, and enable the construction of the decision support system. Karagiannis et al. (2010) proposed a functions interactions structure approach to model and analyze the robustness of industrial emergency plans, providing for an assessment of the functions and structure for industrial emergency plans. Zhou (2013), considering the great influence of human actions, proposed a colored hybrid Petri net model for an oil station team leader’s emergency response to a fire, as an example of human response action modeling in chemical accidents. This research provides a useful reference for the modification and simulation of emergency plans. In addition, many modeling and analyzing methods of emergency plans have been proposed in many other fields (Ruiz-Martin et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2014; Elmitiny et al., 2007; Tavana, 2008).

However, for the modeling of railway emergency plans, there are relatively few studies, among which, Ai (2008) proposed a Petri net-based model for railway emergency plans, and fuzzy mathematics and Markov chain were used for analysis, and Li (2013) adopted the same method for the railway emergency plan of dangerous freight transport. In general, there is a lack of research on modeling of railway emergency plans, especially for electric multiple units (EMUs) rescue, which is usually caused by the failure of railway traveling equipment (e.g. railway lines, pantograph and catenary), leading to abnormal operation or parking. The consequences will be very serious if this kind of emergency cannot be solved in time. Therefore, the study of railway emergency plans is of great significance for the recovery of railway transportation.

This paper proposed a modeling method based on hierarchical timed Petri net (HTPN), a very powerful graphical and mathematical tool to describe the relationship between events and conditions. With HTPN, the proposed model is of strong descriptive ability and is able to deal with larger-scale systems in a top-down approach and do quantitative analyses with time limitations being introduced. First, we introduced and analyzed the process of the railway emergency plan. Second, we built a Petri net framework for the general railway emergency plan and then instantiated it to EMUs rescue by ExSpect. The experiments show that the instantiated HTPN model is of better readability, visualization and performability, and meanwhile, the proposed EMUs rescue model, to a certain extent, conform to the practice well, offering potential reference for future analysis of the optimization of railway emergency plans. Finally, based on the experiment results, we put forward some suggestions for the optimization of the EMUs rescue emergency plan.

2. Railway emergency plan

When a railway emergency occurs, e.g. equipment failure, railway traffic accidents and natural disasters, it often leads to unexpected consequences, including injuries and deaths, economic loss and traffic interruption. In the face of emergencies, the emergency plan plays an important role in reducing injuries and loss. As shown in Figure 1, the procedure of the general railway emergency plan mainly includes three main stages: early alarming stage, emergency response and rescue stage and post disposal stage (Ministry of Transport of the People’s Republic of China, 2012; Ai, 2008; Li, 2013).

The early alarming stage mainly includes emergency alarming and reporting, as well as early response disposal. The detailed process of this stage is as shown in the left part of Figure 1, in which:

  • Emergency alarming means the staff on duty (e.g. the train driver) send an alarm to the train dispatcher or the station attendant of the nearest railway station.

  • Alarm receiving refers to the reception of emergency information by the superior department (e.g. the dispatching office).

  • Emergency reporting refers to the process of level by level reporting to other relevant superior departments (e.g. emergency office, railway group corporation and railway corporation).

  • Emergency level determination refers to the determination of accident level (I, II, III, IV, V) according to some key indicators, such as the number of injuries and deaths, economic losses and time of traffic interruption.

  • Information delivery within stations and depots refers to the process of reporting the emergency information to the neighboring stations, as well as assisting them with the adjustment of train operation.

  • Early response disposal refers to taking preliminary measures to control the situation before the emergency leading group arrives.

  • Auxiliary decision refers to consulting relevant experts with more practical emergency response methods and rescue measures based on the preliminary emergency plan.

  • Alarm modification refers to the update of alarm information or accident level according to the accident development status.

As the most important and critical stage during the entire emergency process, the emergency response and rescue stage mainly includes command and launch of on-site emergency rescue work, as well as cause investigation. The detailed process of this stage is as shown in the middle part of Figure 1, in which:

  • Establishment of emergency rescue headquarters refers to the emergency command center of both railway group corporation and the base station.

  • Implementation of emergency rescue work refers to carrying out various emergency rescue work, including emergency disposal, medical care, emergency communication, emergency dispatching, etc.

  • Expert decision refers to the emergency office and command center determining whether to adopt a higher-level emergency plan through previous investigation and assessment work.

  • Assistance application refers to the application to the government for support (e.g. firefighting equipment, medical equipment and military assistance).

Post-disposal stage, which is very important for recovery, mainly includes the aftermath of accidents, work assessment, as well as record establishment. The detailed process of this stage is as shown in the right part of Figure 1.

3. Hierarchical timed Petri net

3.1 Conceptions of Petri net

As a powerful graphical and mathematical tool, the Petri net was proposed by Dr Carl Adam Petri in 1962 (Petri, 1966). It is a network to describe the relationship between events and conditions, which are represented as transitions and places in Petri net, respectively. A transition can be an event, a task, a computation step, a logical statement, etc., and accordingly, places can be preconditions and postconditions, resources needed and released, input and output data, conditions and conclusions, etc. The definition of a places/transition Petri net is as follows (Murata, 1989):

(1) =(P,T,F,K,W,M0)
where:

P = {p1, p2, …., pm} is a finite set of places;

T = {t1, t2, …, tn} is a finite set of transitions;

PT denotes the net is not empty and PT = ∅ denotes duality;

F(P×T)(T×P) is a set of arcs (the flow relation between P and T);

dom(F)cod(F)=PT denotes no isolated elements in the net, in which,

dom(F) = {x | ∃y: (x, y) ∈ F}, and cod(F) = {x | ∃y: (y, x) ∈ F}, x,yPT;

K: PN* (N* = {1, 2, 3, …}) is the capacity function of places;

W: FN* (N* = {1, 2, 3, …}) is the weight function of arcs, and to simplify the model, we assume that ∀fF, W (f) = 1;

M: PN (N = {0, 1, 2, …}) is the marking of the system, must satisfying the condition of ∀pP, M (p) ≤ K (p); and

M0 is the initial marking. We can use M = {m1, m2, …, mi} to describe the system state at a certain moment, where mi = M(pi) denotes the number of Tokens (the resources in the place) in place pi.

The system state determines the firing of transitions, and the transitions, in turn, bring changes to the system state. The firing rules of transitions are defined as follows (Chongyi, 2005):

(2) pt·:M(p)W(p,t)pt·:M(p)+W(p,t)K(p)
where ·t = {p | (p, x) ∈ F} and t· = {p | (x, p) ∈ F} are the pre-set and post-set of transition t, respectively, and W (p, t) denotes the weight of the arc from p to t.

If the transition t is enabled under M (M enables t), we define this as M [t >. If M [t >, then

(3) M = { M ( p ) W ( p , t ) ,                    p t · t · M ( p ) + W ( t , p ) ,                    p t · t · M ( p ) + W ( t , p ) W ( p , t ) ,     p t · t · M ( p ) ,                                    p t · t ·
where M′ is the post-marking of M, and W (t, p) denotes the weight of the arc from t to p.

As a promising tool applicable to many kinds of systems, Petri nets do well in describing and analyzing system characteristics of sequence, concurrency, conflict (Murata, 1989), etc., as shown in Figure 2, respectively, defined as follows:

(4) (M[t1>M)(¬M[t2>)(M[t2>) 
(5) (M[t1>)(M[t2>)(M[t1>M1)(M1[t2>)(M[t2>M2)(M2[t1>)
(6) (M[t1>)(M[t2>)(M[t1>M1)(¬M1[t2>)(M[t2>M2)(¬M2[t1>)
where M is the original marking in Figure 2(a)–(c); M is the successor marking of M [Figure 2(a)]; M1 and M2 are the successor markings of M after the firing of t1 and t2, respectively [Figure 2(b)–(c)]; M[t1 > M′ denotes marking M′ is reachable from marking M by transition t1; and ¬M[t2 > denotes t2 is disabled under marking M. It can be concluded that in the sequential relation, every transition has a specific firing order and in the concurrent relation, the firing of any transition will never affect the firing ability of the other one, which, however, will be disabled in the conflict relation.

However, one of the weaknesses of the Petri net is its complexity and confusion problem (Murata, 1989), i.e. when the selected system is large, or even just with a modest size, the Petri net-based model is prone to more difficulties in analyzing, accordingly. Therefore, based on the characteristics of the emergency plan being phased, we reduced and clarified the model by hierarchical Petri net (HPN), which builds sub-nets (each sub-net can be an abstraction of a group of transitions and places) to describe the system in a top-down approach.

Figure 3 is an example of an HPN, in which a sub-net is replaced by a single transition t2 (also called a substitution transition), which enables easier understanding of the whole system by hiding the complex behavior of the system from the observer (Bago et al., 2008). Therefore, HPN makes the model object-oriented and enhances its readability.

Traditional Petri nets, which mainly describe the causal relationship between states, only have the concept of process control but not of time. However, for the quantitative analysis of an emergency plan, time is a very important parameter. Therefore, this paper extended the traditional Petri net to a timed Petri net (TPN) (Holliday and Vernon, 1987), as defined in the following:

(7) =(P,T,F,K,W,M0,D)
where D: T × P → ℛ+ ∪ {0} is a set of firing durations (deterministic or stochastic) of transitions.

In the TPN, the firing of a transition is usually associated with a limitation on the duration, rather than being an atomic operation (without interruption and switch), which differentiates TPN from the traditional Petri net.

3.2 Framework model of railway emergency plan

Based on the previous analysis of the general railway emergency plan and introduction of the basic Petri net theory, the Petri net-based framework model of railway emergency plan (Ai, 2008) is as shown in Figure 4, consisting of three main parts, including the early alarming process, emergency response and rescue process and post-disposal process. And, because of its complexity, only parts of the definitions of variables in the framework model are listed in Table 1.

According to different types of railway emergencies (e.g. signal equipment failure and derailment), the framework model can be further instantiated into different types of emergency plan models. In this paper, we instantiate the framework by modeling an EMUs rescue emergency plan model based on HTPN.

4. Instantiate modeling and simulation

4.1 Instantiated railway emergency plan

In the previous section, we have analyzed the overall framework of the general railway emergency plan at the railway corporation level, based on which, various types of emergency plans can be formulated by subordinate departments (e.g. railway group corporation, railway station and depots). There are mainly ten types of railway emergency plans for signal equipment failure (Ou et al., 2019), derailment, abnormal operation of high-speed railway, etc.

The instantiated emergency plan adopted in this paper is the EMUs rescue emergency plan, which is usually caused by the failure of railway traveling equipment (e.g. railway lines, pantograph and catenary), leading to abnormal operation or parking. The consequence will be very serious if this kind of emergency cannot be solved in time, especially for the EMUs, which are of higher speed. Therefore, the study of EMUs rescue emergency plan is of great significance for the recovery of railway transportation. Figure 5 is the analysis of the process of the EMUs rescue emergency plan.

4.2 Instantiated modeling

In the previous sections, we have analyzed the railway emergency plan (EMUs rescue) and introduced the basic conceptions of HTPN. In this section, based on the framework model we have prepared, we will build an HTPN-based model for EMUs rescue emergency plan by ExSpect (Executable Specification Tool), a simulation and animation tool for Petri nets designed by Deloitte and Touche Bakkenist and the Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands (van der Aalst et al., 2000). ExSpect is a powerful tool for modeling, monitoring, analyzing and tracking, with a full graphic user interface and a sound formal basis.

Figure 6 is the HTPN-based model of EMUs rescue emergency plan modeled by ExSpect, where the yellow rectangular blocks represent the sub-nets of the system, i.e. sys1_report_emerg, sys2_early_repaire, sys3_response_rescue and sys4_later_disp, which represent early alarming and reporting stage, early response disposal stage, emergency response and rescue stage and post-disposal stage, respectively, according to the previous analysis.

The four sub-nets of the HTPN model of EMUs rescue emergency plan are as shown in Figures 7 and 8, where the three sub-nets of early alarming and reporting stage, early response disposal stage and post-disposal stage, have been reduced to more concise ones, respectively. While the emergency response and rescue stage remain a more detailed sub-net, considering its complexity and great importance during the whole EMUs rescue process. Obviously, based on the HTPN and the ExSpect tool, this EMUs rescue emergency plan model is prone to better readability, visualization and digitization.

Relevant variables in the HTPN model of EMUs rescue emergency plan are listed in Table 2.

As we previously mentioned, the consideration of the firing duration of transitions in Petri nets is of great significance for the analysis of railway emergency plans. The main limitations on the duration are listed in Table 3, where limitations are mainly derived from the regulations of emergency response time for high-speed railway operation (China Railway Guangzhou Group, 2018).

4.3 Simulation and analysis

We conducted 625 experiments, where we found that the token generated at the beginning of the model can always reach the end place from t19 or sys3_response_rescue sub-net, i.e. p23_response_ended always holds the token in each experiment, with no deadlock in the network. Besides, according to the simulation, we can easily conclude that the net is bounded, without requiring infinite resources.

The simulation time of the HTPN model of EMUs rescue emergency plan is as shown in Figure 9.

In Figure 9, T_transfer, T_stage1, T_stage2 and T_total refer to the simulation duration of t16 (t16_organize_transfer_or_rescue), the first stage of early alarming, the second stage of emergency response and rescue and the total time of the complete process, respectively. According to the simulation results, the total time is prone to lead to an emergency response of level IV (interruption of the high-speed railway >60 min), which is what we do not expect compared to level V (20 min < interruption of the high-speed railway < 60 min). Actually, according to the historical data of a railway group corporation from 2016 to 2019, the average duration of EMUs rescues is about 75 min, which is relatively close to the simulation results.

T_total mainly consists of T_stage1 and T_stage2, and it can be obviously concluded that the second stage, i.e. emergency response and rescue, is much more time-consuming with an average of simulation results of about 60 min. Meanwhile, in the second stage, T_transfer accounts for more than half of T_stage2. Therefore, to reduce the time cost and emergency response level, reducing the duration of the second stage, more precisely, t16, to provide and organize a more efficient transfer and rescue is very crucial, providing a potential reference for the optimization of the emergency plan. In addition, the emergency plan can be optimized from other aspects, e.g. the monitoring system, fault prediction and the technical operation of the rescue train.

5. Conclusions

To establish a formal and digital railway emergency plan, this paper proposed and promoted a modeling solution for railway emergency plans. First, we introduced and analyzed the process of the general railway emergency plan. Second, we explained the HTPN theory and established the framework model for the general railway emergency plan, which applies to all types of railway emergency plans. Then, we analyzed a particular type of emergency plan, i.e. the EMUs rescue, and we used ExSpect to conduct the HTPN modeling for this instantiated emergency plan. Lastly, according to the simulation results, the model can generally conform to the practice well and we put forward some suggestions to optimize the EMUs rescue emergency plan. According to the experiments, the proposed digital and visualized model is of better readability and, meanwhile, a promising tool and a significant basis for the analysis, assessment and improvement of railway emergency plans.

Future work will consist of further developing the framework model, integrating with more practical data of the execution of railway emergency plans to enhance the adaptability of the proposed model.

6. Data availability statements

Some or all data, models or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Data include some related documents about the railway emergency plan, code includes some .py files and models include some .ex, .h and .cfg files.

Figures

The process of the general railway emergency plan

Figure 1.

The process of the general railway emergency plan

Different kinds of system activities of the Petri net

Figure 2.

Different kinds of system activities of the Petri net

Petri net framework model of the general railway emergency plan

Figure 4.

Petri net framework model of the general railway emergency plan

The process of EMUs rescue emergency plan

Figure 5.

The process of EMUs rescue emergency plan

HTPN-based model of EMUs rescue emergency plan

Figure 6.

HTPN-based model of EMUs rescue emergency plan

Sub-net of EMUs rescue emergency plan of emergency response and rescue stage

Figure 7.

Sub-net of EMUs rescue emergency plan of emergency response and rescue stage

Simplified sub-nets of EMUs rescue emergency plan

Figure 8.

Simplified sub-nets of EMUs rescue emergency plan

Simulation time of HTPN model of EMUs rescue emergency plan

Figure 9.

Simulation time of HTPN model of EMUs rescue emergency plan

Definition of some variables in the Petri net framework model of railway emergency plan

Transition Transition description Place Place description
p1 Emergency happened t1 Emergency alarming
p2 Alarm information t2 Alarm receiving
p3 Emergency information t3 Emergency reporting
p4 Early response disposal starts t4 Early response disposal
p32 Record establishment information t38 End the plan

Definition of variables in the HTPN model of EMUs rescue emergency plan

Transition Transition description Place Place description
p1 Emergency happened t1 The driver alarms
p2 The driver t2 The dispatcher reports the alarm
p3 The dispatcher t3 The mechanic reports cannot be repaired
p4 The railway group corporation t4 The mechanic starts the repair
p5 The mechanic t5 The driver asks for a rescue
p6 Finish the repair t6 Study the rescue plan
p7 Cannot be repaired t7 Release the rescue command
p8 The driver received the report from the mechanic (cannot be repaired) t8 The driver makes preparations
p9 The mechanic received the emergency message t9 The mechanic makes preparations
p10 The dispatcher received the rescue application t10 The technical operation of the rescue locomotive
p11 The dispatcher received the alarm t11 The locomotive departs
p12 The driver gets ready for the rescue train t12 Prepare the crews of rescue EMUs
p13 The driver received the rescue notice t13 the EMUs depart (inside the station)
p14 The mechanic received the rescue notice t14 The EMUs depart (outside the station)
p15 The mechanic gets ready for the rescue train t15 Conduct and arrange emergency forces
p16 Rescue by locomotive t16 Organize the transfer/rescue
p17 Rescue by EMUs t17 Post disposal
p18 The rescue EMUs arrived t18 The mechanic informs the driver
p19 By EMUs inside the station t19 The driver informs the dispatcher
p20 By EMUs outside the station t20 The technical operation of the rescue EMUs
p21 All the emergency forces are arranged tend End the emergency rescue
p22 End of the rescue
p23 End of the emergency plan
p24 The driver received the notice from the mechanic (repaired)
p25 The railway group corporation received the rescue request
p26 The rescue plan is determined
p27 The rescue locomotive arrived
p28 The technical operation finished

Limitations on the emergency response time for high-speed railway operation

Transition Duration Limitation (min)
t1_driver_alarm d1 ≤2
t2_disp_report d2 ≤5
t3_mecha_report_cannot_be_repaired d3 ≤2
t4_mecha_repair d4 ≤20
t5_driver_askfor_rescue d5 ≤2
t7_release_rescue_commands d6 ≤5
t8_driver_compl_prep d7 ≤15
t9_mecha_compl_prep d8 ≤15
t11_locomotive_departs d59 ≤15
t10_locomotive_tech_oper d10 ≤40
t13_in_station_EMU_departs d11 ≤10
t14_outside_station_EMU_departs d12 ≤20
t16_organize_transfer_or_rescue d13 ≤60
t18_mecha_report_repaired d14 ≤2
t19_driver_report_repaired d15 ≤5
t20_EMUs_tech_oper d16 ≤30

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant number 2018YFB1201403) and the Research Program of Shanghai Science and Technology Committee (Grant number 18DZ2202600). The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the valuable comments and advice on this manuscript.

Corresponding author

Dongxiu Ou can be contacted at: ou.dongxiu@tongji.edu.cn

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