The digitalisation of the railway opens new doors for a more efficient railway. The train control system of the future is the European Train Control System (ETCS). The operational performance of the system and therefore the line capacity is largely determined by the braking models used. This is why the Gamma model is used on many vehicles, preferably railcars and trains. It provides a good physical description of the braking characteristics of trainsets for ETCS. The precise modelling also provides a good basis for the subsequent implementation of Automatic Train Operation (ATO).

The ETCS on-board devices require vehicle-specific safety factors depending on the so-called emergency brake confidence level in addition to the precise modelling of the vehicle braking characteristics. Their calculation is governed by prEN 17997, which is based on Monte Carlo simulations to determine the parameters for gamma brake models from measurement data, statistical data, error rates and the brake architecture.

With good gamma models, the vehicle contributes to increasing the operational stability and the performance of the railway system. In the long term, this can lead to advantages in the allocation of train paths and train path prices.

The application of gamma models is not limited to ETCS. In principle, they can also be used for communications-based train control (CBTC) systems.