Research on earthquake early warning and emergency response for high-speed railways based on the PLUM principle

– This study aims to design and validate an emergency response method for high-speed railway earthquake early warning (EEW) systems based on the Propagation of Local Undamped Motion (PLUM) principle in order to enhance the timeliness and accuracy of warnings under seismic threats.

– A hierarchical architecture of the railway EEW system was adopted, in which self-built stations along the railway serve as the backbone and the national seismic network provides supplementary data. Warning zones were designed along the railway using overlapping trapezoidal layouts to cover seismic stations and reduce inter-regional time delays. Offline replay experiments were conducted using 82 historical earthquake events and records from 61 seismic stations to evaluate the timeliness and accuracy of warning information.

– The results indicate that the PLUM-based early warning method can issue emergency response information before destructive seismic waves arrive. Multiple earthquake experiments demonstrated high reliability and stability, with effective detection across different magnitudes and epicentral distances. Furthermore, the trapezoidal overlapping zone design improved regional consistency and significantly reduced missed alerts.

– This work represents the first systematic application of the PLUM method to high-speed railway EEW in China. By integrating railway operational requirements, the proposed method provides a practical and robust emergency response strategy, offering new insights into seismic risk mitigation for China's high-speed railways.