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Risk-informed sustainable asset management of railway tracks

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Torbaghan, Mehran Eskandari  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6069-6108

Abstract

jats:p Railway track infrastructure asset management is a challenging problem with added values on safety, society and environment. With railways serving as a key sustainable mode of transportation for passengers and freight, the industry is facing an increasing demand to expand its capacity, availability and speed, resulting in faster deterioration of the ageing railway track infrastructure. Given the constrained maintenance budgets and the environmental challenges posed by climate change, railway asset managers have to identify economically and environmentally justifiable track maintenance strategies without compromising on safety. To this end, this paper proposes a risk-informed approach to arrive at sustainable railway track maintenance strategies while considering the associated track maintenance costs and impacts on train operation (environmental emissions and risk of derailments). Monte Carlo simulation is employed to address data uncertainties associated with track quality data, the costs and benefits of track maintenance and train operation. The proposed approach is successfully applied to the heavy-haul railway lines in Sweden and Australia to compare some alternative maintenance strategies and identify the sustainable one. </jats:p>

Description

Keywords

infrastructure planning, maintenance & inspection, sustainability

Journal Title

INFRASTRUCTURE ASSET MANAGEMENT

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2053-0242
2053-0250

Volume Title

8

Publisher

Thomas Telford Ltd.

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Technology Strategy Board (920035)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/N021614/1)
Prestige Grant, World Transport Research Society