Foreword

With the rapid development of research on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in worldwide scope, the relevant research on ITS technology applying to railway transportation began in about 2000; subsequently the Railway Intelligent Transportation System (RITS) construction became the focus of railway transportation improvement. Much remarkable progress, such as the ERTMS system in Europe and the CyberRail system in Japan etc., has been obtained in recent 5 years. The research on RITS in China is on going. RITS related framework, standard system and the development strategy have been initially formed up to now.

The book of “The Theory and Method of Design and Optimization for Railway Intelligent Transportation Systems (RITS)” is devoted to scholarly research on China’s RITS development courses, system framework, optimization design, key technologies and current situation etc. RITS utilizes synergistic technologies and system concepts to achieve high efficiency, high safety and high-quality service for railway transportation. It encompasses the full scope of information technologies used in railway transportation, including control, computation intelligent and communication, as well as the algorithms. RITS optimization design mainly resolves the problems of function optimization organization, sub-system partition and function optimization setting of the sub-system. These optimization design theories and methods are applied in practical system, such as Chinese Qinghai-Tabit railway comprehensive monitoring system etc.

Authors of the book have many years’ research and practical experience in RITS fields, and complete Chinese RITS framework and development strategy establishment. They have exerted their utmost effort in the book and have elaborated their work. I believe this academic monograph of RITS is indeed beneficial to readers of graduates and researchers in related fields of university or institute, as well as related people in railway transportation fields in their research and work.