Study on the effect of redundant time on the operation of mixed passenger and freight traffic system using cellular automata model

•The cellular automaton model of mixed passenger and freight traffic system.•The cellular automata model of the fixed autoblock system.•The rules of redundant time on the operation of passenger and freight traffic system. Taking the four-aspect fixed autoblock system as research object, this work proposes the cellular automata model of the fixed autoblock system based on existing theoretical researches through the analytical study of classical cellular automata model. The complexity and openness of the railway system are combined with the characteristics of cellular automata in this model. Through simulation, this paper studies and obtains the rules of the effect of redundant time on the operation of passenger and freight traffic system.