Lets build a tunnel! - A closer look at Cologne's new subway routes

Once planning and construction will be complete, Colognes new subway tunnel will enable fast and direct transportation between the central and southern urban quarters, and the citys central station. This paper takes a closer look at the projects four decades spanning history, its characteristics, and the impact of its integration on the overall systems performance. When representations of the tunnel and the re-routed light-rail lines are integrated with an existing simulation model, experiments show that no negative impact on the networks performance is to be expected. Some weaknesses are discovered, resulting for example in delayed departures at the tunnels stations.