Patent ID: 9676403
Date: 2017-06-13
CPC Classifications: B61L

Claim:
1. A method comprising: determining one or more designated settings of a trip plan for a trip of a vehicle system along a route, the trip plan designating the one or more designated settings at one or more of different times or different locations along the route for the trip; determining one or more prospective handling parameters for the vehicle system during movement of the vehicle system along the route for the trip based on the trip plan, wherein determining the one or more handling parameters includes determining at least a roughness index that is representative of changes in a grade of the route in one or more segments of the route; determining one or more operational restrictions for the vehicle system based on the one or more handling parameters that are determined; and revising the trip plan by adhering to the operational restrictions that are determine; wherein determining the roughness index includes at least one of determining a weighted sum of the changes in the grade of the route as the roughness index or determining a metric calculated from a spatial spectral analysis of the changes in the grade of the route.