Evaluation of the impact that the traffic model used in railway electrical simulation has on the assessment of the installation of a Reversible Substation

•An improved traffic model for DC electric railway multitrain simulators is proposed.•It outperforms the accuracy of the most common traffic model of the literature.•Energy saving from installing a Reversible Substation with both models is compared.•The model used in the literature produces non-accurate estimations of energy saving.•This fact would affect the decision-making process of infrastructure investments.