Railway track quality assessment and related decision making

Abstract

Railways must establish explicit processes for making decisions on various activities to be undertaken to keep these key objects within desirable (required) condition/operational limits. These activities usually represent M&R works, but could also represent other activities like additional/extraordinary inspections. This paper describes how such a condition-based process can be designed. The process consists of identifying key infra-objects and their necessary information, finding ways for collecting this data, and understanding relationships between these data (revealing the key objects' behavior in time). Certain thresholds are applied for certain condition parameters, and deterioration models are utilized to determine when these limits are reached; they signify needs for certain M&R works/inspections.