Strategies for maintenance management of railway track assets

M.Ing. (Engineering Management)Abstract: Population growth and environmental issues are revitalizing the railway sector in a tremendous way. An increase in frequency of passenger traffic and rising loads of freight trains has an impact on dynamic railway track properties and components thereof. The challenge from the railway fraternity is to rise to the challenge by ensuring a safe, reliable and affordable mode of transport. The purpose of this research is to investigate the capacity needed to meet demand by maintaining the track components of the railway infrastructure cost effectively. The railway track is the most critical in terms of safety, influence on maintenance costs, availability and reliability of the train service. Profillidis (2012) highlights the fact that track maintenance expenses represent a significant percentage of total railway infrastructure expenses. In literature, different maintenance strategies, approaches and concepts are discussed in light with arguments raised by different scholars and researchers. The main research methodology utilised was the case study on maintenance strategies from different countries where data was mostly available. The reason for the chosen method was to standardise the research method across different countries as this made it easy to obtain the findings and arrive at recommendations of the research. The broader findings from different maintenance strategies were that the track maintenance approach still has to evolve from working in silos to working in a system that acknowledges that decisions taken from other departments can affect the quality of maintenance in future. The deterioration of the track system is mostly affected by the initial quality of the railway track after commissioning due to workmanship and track design, maintenance approach, type of rolling stock tonnages, speed of rolling stock, and environmental related issues. Design phase of the track acknowledges the systems thinking approach for quality and structural integrity. However, more can still be done to adopt approaches that foster inter-departmental coordination in the maintenance phase of the railway track asset lifecycle. Transnet faces a challenge of fulfilling its obligation by providing quality and cost effective maintenance to increase the reliability, affordability, availability and safety of its infrastructure with the ever-increasing freight volumes. The traditional approach of maintaining railway track assets does not bring in required outcomes that ensure high quality and cost effective maintenance as required by high intensity asset utilisation. Data collected from the..

A Systematic Literature Review of Drone Utility in Railway Condition Monitoring

Raj Bridgelall is the program director for the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute (UGPTI) Center for Surface Mobility Applications & Real-time Simulation environments (SMARTSeSM).Drones have recently become a new tool in railway inspection and monitoring (RIM) worldwide, but there is still a lack of information about the specific benefits and costs. This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) of the applications, opportunities, and challenges of using drones for RIM. The SLR technique yielded 47 articles filtered from 7,900 publications from 2014 to 2022. The SLR found that key motivations for using drones in RIM are to reduce costs, improve safety, save time, improve mobility, increase flexibility, and enhance reliability. Nearly all the applications fit into the categories of defect identification, situation assessment, rail network mapping, infrastructure asset monitoring, track condition monitoring, and obstruction detection. The authors assessed the open technical, safety, and regulatory challenges. The authors also contributed a cost analysis framework, identified factors that affect drone performance in RIM, and offered implications for new theories, management, and impacts to society.The authors conducted this work with support from North Dakota State University and the Mountain-Plains Consortium, a University Transportation Center funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.https://www.ugpti.org/about/staff/viewbio.php?id=7

Satellite Monitoring of Railways using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR)

There is over 15,600 km of track in the Swedish railroad network. This network is vital for the transportation of people and goods across the country. It is important that this network is monitored and maintained to ensure good function and safety. A tool for monitoring and measuring ground deformation over a large area remotely with high frequency and accuracy was developed in recent decades. This tool is known as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), and is used by researchers, geo-technicians, and engineers. The purpose of this study has been to evaluate the use and feasibility of the InSAR technique for track condition monitoring and compare it to conventional track condition monitoring techniques. Malmbanan, which is primarily used to transport iron-ore from mines in Sweden to the ports of Luleå, Sweden and Narvik, Norway, is used as a case study for this project; specifically, the section between Kiruna and Riksgränsen. Coordinate matching of measurements from the provided Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) InSAR data and Optram data from survey trains were performed. Then measured changes over different time spans within the two systems were overlapped and classified with different thresholds to see if there is correlation between the two systems. An extensive literature review was also conducted in order to gain an understanding of InSAR technologies and uses.The literature review showed that there is a large potential and a quickly growing number of applications of InSAR to monitor railways and other types of infrastructure, and that the tools and algorithms for this are being improved. The case study, on the other hand, shows that it can be difficult to directly compare measurement series from different tools, each working on different resolutions in terms of both time and space. InSAR is thus not about to replace techniques such as those behind Optram (using measurement trains). Instead, the approaches offer complementary perspectives, each highlighting different types of issues. We find that InSAR offers a good way to identify locations with settlements or other types of ground motions. Especially transition zones between settlements and more stable ground can be challenging from a maintenance point of view and can clearly be identified and monitored using InSAR. With the rollout of national InSAR-data, and the large increase in data accessibility, we see a considerable potential for future studies that apply the technique to the railway area

Economic evaluations using genetic algorithms to determine the territorial impact caused by high speed railways

The evolution of technology and construction techniques has enabled the upgrading of transport networks. In particular, the high-speed rail networks allow convoys to peak at above 300 km/h. These structures, however, often significantly impact the surrounding environment. Among the effects of greater importance are the ones provoked by the soundwave connected to train transit. The wave propagation affects the quality of life in areas surrounding the tracks, often for several hundred metres. There are substantial damages to properties (buildings and land), in terms of market depreciation. The present study, integrating expertise in acoustics, computering and evaluation fields, outlines a useful model to select project paths so as to minimize the noise impact and reduce the causes of possible litigation. It also facilitates the rational selection of initiatives to contain the environmental damage to the already existing railway tracks. The research is developed with reference to the Italian regulatory framework (usually more stringent than European and international standards) and refers to a case study concerning the high speed network in Italy

Understanding Railway Trespassing in a South African City: The Case Of Cape Town

Trespassing behaviour is a problem for railway operations and manifests itself through train-pedestrian collisions, incidents of theft and vandalism to rail infrastructure, as well as encroachment on railway property. The study has consisted of a quantitative and a qualitative part. The quantitative part analyses demographic, temporal and spatial data on train-pedestrian fatalities and injuries, as well as data on occurrences of theft and malicious damage to rail infrastructure in the Cape Town Functional Region between 2015 and 2018. The qualitative part presents the perspective from a diverse group of subject matter experts, having explored opinions on trespassing behaviours and preventative measures. Additionally, the trespassing behaviour at several sites was investigated and a case study evaluation of the efficacy of a pilot Rail Enforcement Unit was carried out. There were 456 railway-related deaths during the study period with 330 of this being train-pedestrian collisions. There were 4715 occurrences of theft and malicious damage to railway assets over the period. Several hot-spot areas were identified via the data and interviews with experts and several sites chosen for further verification. Site visits confirmed widespread trespassing behaviours with the two worst locations recording an average of over 300 persons in a 15-minute period. The case study reviewing the effectiveness of the security and enforcement countermeasure revealed that occurrences of train-pedestrian incidents, as well as security occurrences have increased by 1.4% and 7.5% respectively. Evidence of geographical displacement of crime is evident, suggesting that enforcement countermeasures are temporarily effective and need to be considered in combination with other measures to ensure its durability. In conclusion, this research presents a detailed analysis of railway trespassing and its main effects in order to understand the problem locally. Different approaches are required to combat the various guises of railway trespassing. Certain countermeasures may well be within the rail operator's remit, but essentially, the nature of problems experienced by the rail operator is beyond a rail problem, and requires a systems approach involving multiple authoritie

Designing and Operating Safe and Secure Transit Systems: Assessing Current Practices in the United States and Abroad, MTI Report 04-05

Public transit systems around the world have for decades served as a principal venue for terrorist acts. Today, transit security is widely viewed as an important public policy issue and is a high priority at most large transit systems and at smaller systems operating in large metropolitan areas. Research on transit security in the United States has mushroomed since 9/11; this study is part of that new wave of research. This study contributes to our understanding of transit security by (1) reviewing and synthesizing nearly all previously published research on transit terrorism; (2) conducting detailed case studies of transit systems in London, Madrid, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.; (3) interviewing federal officials here in the United States responsible for overseeing transit security and transit industry representatives both here and abroad to learn about efforts to coordinate and finance transit security planning; and (4) surveying 113 of the largest transit operators in the United States. Our major findings include: (1) the threat of transit terrorism is probably not universal—most major attacks in the developed world have been on the largest systems in the largest cities; (2) this asymmetry of risk does not square with fiscal politics that seek to spread security funding among many jurisdictions; (3) transit managers are struggling to balance the costs and (uncertain) benefits of increased security against the costs and (certain) benefits of attracting passengers; (4) coordination and cooperation between security and transit agencies is improving, but far from complete; (5) enlisting passengers in surveillance has benefits, but fearful passengers may stop using public transit; (6) the role of crime prevention through environmental design in security planning is waxing; and (7) given the uncertain effectiveness of antitransit terrorism efforts, the most tangible benefits of increased attention to and spending on transit security may be a reduction in transit-related person and property crimes