Assessment of Improvement Areas for Increasing the Capacity of Ethio-Djibouti Railway Line
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Date
2018-03
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AAU
Abstract
Ethio-Djibouti railway line can support the economic growth of the country by allowing
transportation of more goods than now, reduce greenhouse gas emission (environmental
friendly), reduce road congestion, allows the country to increase the variety of export
goods. This research aims to analyze the capacity issues of Ethio-Djibouti railway line
and identify and assess possible capacity improvement areas to satisfy the railway
transport demand of Ethiopia for the coming 50years time period.
To attain the objective of the research firstly practical capacity of the existing EthioDjibouti
railway line is done by UIC405 analytical method; secondly railway
transportation demand for both freight and passenger is assessed along the corridor; it‟s
obvious that the capacity of the existing railway will saturate in the future, the saturation
year is identified by comparing the practical capacity of Ethio-Djibouti railway line with
railway transportation demand analysis done along the corridor. Finally possible capacity
expansion plan mainly infrastructure improvement is identified in this research.
The single track section of Ethio-Djibouti railway practically can accommodate 33
trains/day. The section from Dire Dawa to Negad starting from 2030GC; the section
from Awash to DireDawa starting from 2036GC and the section from Adama to Awash
starting from 2037GC will become saturated and needed capacity improvement.
To satisfy the increasing railway transportation demand along Ethio-Djibouti railway
line increasing the number of trains operating on the line can be the solution; but the
sections infrastructure capacity wouldn‟t allow to add more trains in the saturation years.
Therefore, in 2030GC the single track railway from DireDawa to Djibouti; in the year of
2036GC the section from Awash to Dire Dawa and in the year of 2037 GC the railway
line section from Adama to Awash should have to be changed to double track in order to
fulfill the demand. The double track section from Sebeta to Adama can practically
accommodate 64 trains/day but the demand analysis shows that starting from 2059GC
the line will become saturated in this case infrastructure expansion is not necessary
because it can satisfy the demand on the specified time window.
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Keywords
capacity, Ethio-Djibouti railway, capacity improvement, UIC405, capacity analysis, railway demand analysis