Abstract
The provision of safe, efficient, reliable and affordable railway transport requires the railway track infrastructure to be maintained to an appropriate condition. Given the constrained budgets under which the infrastructure is managed, maintenance needs to be predicted in advance of track failure, prioritized and identified risks and uncertainties need to be considered within the decision-making process. This paper describes a risk-informed approach that can be used to economically justify railway track infrastructure conditions by comparing on a life-cycle basis infrastructure maintenance costs, train operating costs, travel time costs, safety, social and environmental impacts. The approach represents a step-change for the railway industry as it will enable economic maintenance standards to be derived which considers the needs of the infrastructure operator, but also those of users, train operating companies and the environment. Further, the risk-informed capability of the tool enables asset managers to deal with uncertainties associated with forecasting costs and the effects of track maintenance, and unavailability of data. The Monte Carlo simulation technique and a Fuzzy reasoning approach are used to address safety data uncertainties through probabilistic risk assessment allied to expert opinion. The approach is illustrated using data from three routes on the UK mainline railway network. The results demonstrate that the approach can be used to support strategic and tactical levels of railway asset management to inform plausible design and maintenance strategies that realise the maximum benefit for the available budget.
Highlights
The railways are crucial to a country’s socioeconomic development as they are can provide safe, affordable, efficient, reliable public transport at low environmental cost and are a significant provider of jobs and tax revenues
Safety is of critical importance to railway operators, increasing usage results in faster degradation of railway track infrastructure and increases in the train operating costs, environmental impacts and risk of accidents
This paper proposes a new risk-informed approach to assess the impact of railway track quality on the risk of derailments and in so doing provides decision-makers with a risk model to facilitate maintenance planning
Summary
The railways are crucial to a country’s socioeconomic development as they are can provide safe, affordable, efficient, reliable public transport at low environmental cost and are a significant provider of jobs and tax revenues. With the rise in road traffic, which is seen as a less green form of transport and the associated road congestion, there is an increasing demand for railways to expand their capacity, availability and carry goods and passengers at ever-higher speeds. By 2025, railways are expected to carry 11,912 billion tonnekilometres of freight and 5,149 billion passenger kilometres worldwide; an increase of 14.75% and 37.2% respectively from 2015.1 Between 1993–94 and 2019–20 railway passenger journeys have increased by 63.5%, 137% and 236% in India, the UK and the USA respectively.[2,3,4] safety is of critical importance to railway operators, increasing usage results in faster degradation of railway track infrastructure and increases in the train operating costs, environmental impacts and risk of accidents.
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