Importance and applications of robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) in railway maintenance sector: a review

Maintenance, which is critical for safe, reliable, quality, and cost-effective service, plays a dominant role in the railway industry. Therefore, this paper examines the importance and applications of Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) in railway maintenance. More than 70 research publications, which are either in practice or under investigation describing RAS developments in the railway maintenance, are analysed. It has been found that the majority of RAS developed are for rolling-stock maintenance, followed by railway track maintenance. Further, it has been found that there is growing interest and demand for robotics and autonomous systems in the railway maintenance sector, which is largely due to the increased competition, rapid expansion and ever-increasing expense

Technology News, April-June 2011

Technology News is a newsletter produced by the Iowa Department of Transportation to provide information to the transportation specialist in Iowa's cities and counties. Technology News is one of CTRE's primary avenues for exchanging transportation-related information with local agencies. The bimonthly newsletter gives an up-to-date look to the up-to-date information our 2,500+ readers have grown to expect

Peer Review Report 2010

The purpose of this document is to report findings from the research peer reviews held April 14, April 15, April 27 & April 28, 2010 for PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research and Development Program. The findings and recommendations in this report are derived from the scoring and comments collected from the peer review panelists. Department of Transportation (DOT) Operating Agencies (OA) are required to develop and execute a systematic process for peer reviews and for all influential and highly influential information that the OA plans to disseminate in the foreseeable future. Through the Information Quality Act, Congress directed the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.” A resulting OMB Bulletin, titled “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review,” was issued, that prescribe required procedures for Federal programs. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) produced procedures governing modal implementation of this OMB Bulletin. These procedures, as well as the OMB Bulletin, serve as the basis and justification for the PHMSA Pipeline Safety R&D Program peer reviews. The purpose of these peer reviews is to uncover technical problems, to keep projects on target or aligned with stakeholder needs and to give technical guidance with technically competent and independent, objective experts. These reviews are held annually for active research projects and usually occur in the second quarter of each fiscal year

Peer Review Report 2009

The purpose of this document is to report findings from the research peer reviews held April 1, April 2, April 14 & April 15, 2009 for PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research and Development Program. The findings and recommendations in this report derive from the scoring and comments collected from the peer review panelists. Department of Transportation (DOT) Operating Agencies (OA) are required to develop and execute a systematic process for peer reviews and for all influential and highly influential information that the OA plans to disseminate in the foreseeable future. Through the Information Quality Act, Congress directed the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.” A resulting OMB Bulletin, titled “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review,” was issued prescribing required procedures for Federal programs. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) produced procedures governing modal implementation of this OMB Bulletin. These procedures, as well as the OMB Bulletin, serve as the basis and justification for the PHMSA Pipeline Safety R&D Program peer reviews. The purpose of these peer reviews is to uncover technical problems, keep projects on target or aligned with stakeholder needs and to give technical guidance with technically competent and independent, objective experts. These reviews are held annually for active research projects and usually occur in the second quarter of each fiscal year

Development of Railroad Highway Grade Crossing Consolidation Rating Formula

The goal of this project was to provide an objective methodology to support public agencies and railroads in making decisions related to consolidation of at-grade rail-highway crossings. The project team developed a weighted-index method and accompanying Microsoft Excel spreadsheet based tool to help evaluate and prioritize all public highway-rail grade crossings systematically from a possible consolidation impact perspective. Factors identified by stakeholders as critical were traffic volume, heavy-truck traffic volume, proximity to emergency medical services, proximity to schools, road system, and out-of-distance travel. Given the inherent differences between urban and rural locations, factors were considered, and weighted, differently, based on crossing location. Application of a weighted-index method allowed for all factors of interest to be included and for these factors to be ranked independently, as well as weighted according to stakeholder priorities, to create a single index. If priorities change, this approach also allows for factors and weights to be adjusted. The prioritization generated by this approach may be used to convey the need and opportunity for crossing consolidation to decision makers and stakeholders. It may also be used to quickly investigate the feasibility of a possible consolidation. Independently computed crossing risk and relative impact of consolidation may be integrated and compared to develop the most appropriate treatment strategies or alternatives for a highway-rail grade crossing. A crossing with limited- or low-consolidation impact but a high safety risk may be a prime candidate for consolidation. Similarly, a crossing with potentially high-consolidation impact as well as high risk may be an excellent candidate for crossing improvements or grade separation. The results of the highway-rail grade crossing prioritization represent a consistent and quantitative, yet preliminary, assessment. The results may serve as the foundation for more rigorous or detailed analysis and feasibility studies. Other pertinent site-specific factors, such as safety, maintenance costs, economic impacts, and location-specific access and characteristics should be considered

3D Infrastructure Condition Assessment For Rail Highway Applications

Highway roughness is a concern for both the motoring public and highway authorities. Roughness may even increase the risk of crashes. Rail-highway grade crossings are particularly problematic. Roughness may be due to deterioration or simply due to the way the crossing was built to accommodate grade change, local utilities, or rail elevation. With over 216,000 crossings in the US, maintenance is a vast undertaking. While methods are available to quantify highway roughness, no method exists to quantitatively assess the condition of rail crossings. Conventional inspection relies on a labor-intensive process of qualitative judgment. A quantifiable, objective and extensible procedure for rating and prioritizing improvement of crossings is thus desired. In this dissertation, a 3D infrastructure condition assessment model is developed for evaluating the condition and performance of rail highway grade crossings. Various scanning techniques and devices are developed or used to obtain the 3D “point cloud” or surface as the first step towards quantifying crossing roughness. Next, a technique for repeatable field measurement of acceleration is presented and tested to provide a condition index. Acceleration-based metrics are developed, and these can be used to rate and compare crossings for improvement programs to mitigate potential vehicle damage and provide passenger comfort. A vehicle dynamic model is next customized to use surface models to estimate vertical accelerations eliminating the need for field data collection. Following, crossing roughness and rideability is estimated directly from 3D point clouds. This allows isolation of acceleration components derived from the surface condition and original design profile. Finally, a practice ready application of the 3D point cloud is developed and presented to address hump crossing safety. In conclusion, the dissertation presents several methods to assess the condition and performance of rail crossings. It provides quantitative metrics that can be used to evaluate designs and construction methods, and efficiently implement cost effective improvement programs. The metrics provide a technique to measure and monitor system assets over time, and can be extended to other infrastructure components such as pavements and bridges