Digital Signalling And Traffic Management As A Capacity Lever For Uzbekistan's Railways: Lessons From European Practice

Abstract

This thesis argues that digital signalling and traffic management are the cheapest available source of new capacity for Uzbekistan's railways, whose freight and transit volumes are growing faster than track can be built. European evidence attributes 15–35% additional capacity to the combination of digital interlocking, ETCS Level 2 and automated traffic management. Uzbekistan already operates computer-based interlocking on several southern lines and began digitising dispatching in 2026 with EBRD support; the missing steps are network-wide traffic management, a modern train-protection layer and a 5G-ready radio strategy. A four-stage migration path is proposed.