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This article offers a historical overview of railway traffic control devices used in the past. They laid the foundations for the construction of further, improved devices that have a decisive impact on the safety of railway traffic. Shape signaling is discussed, which with minor changes is still widely used around the world. Attention is also paid to traffic lights and a comparison of traffic lights in force in Poland and the Germany is provided. The article then discusses train traffic management based on semi-automatic and automatic blocking. The work presents two safety systems of conducting rail traffic: the SHP system (Automatic Braking of a Train) and the PZB system (intermittent automatic train running control). A significant part of the work is devoted to the ETCS system being implemented throughout Europe and beyond. The principle of operation, supervision levels and operating modes of the system are characterized. The style of driving a train and its impact on energy consumption is also discussed. This leads to a consideration of whether changes in the style of driving can, in practice, bring measurable effects in the form of energy savings.
Wolny et al. (Wed,) studied this question.