Preparing Track Geometry Data for Automated Maintenance Planning
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146, Issue 5
Abstract
Research on track quality behavior has been extensively published, and many different approaches have been presented to describe the process of track quality. The research goal of this paper is to form a basis for a data-driven tamping prediction based on track quality analyses over time. A research database containing asset information, executed maintenance tasks, and measuring data of some 4,400 km of track of the Austrian rail network in a time sequence of 16 years is available. The modified standard deviation of vertical track geometry is identified as an ideal track quality indicator for planning and predicting tamping tasks in Austria in the context of this research. Further analyses show that a linear regression function is best suited for describing track quality between two tamping tasks and shows the best accuracy for predicting track quality in the future. An algorithm was developed by means of the linear regression function that enables analyses of track quality behavior over time for long time series and the whole network. This includes track quality before and after tamping tasks as well as deterioration rates. In the future, these basics have to be combined with further technical evaluations to detect an optimal intervention limit. Furthermore, economical and operational considerations must be incorporated to find the optimal tamping strategy under the given conditions.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
Some data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request (code generated for analyzing track quality behavior over time for track maintenance planning).
References
Andrews, J. 2013. “A modelling approach to railway track asset management.” Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part F: J. Rail Rapid Transit 227 (1): 56–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0954409712452235.
Audley, M., and J. D. Andrews. 2013. “The effects of tamping on railway track geometry degradation.” Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part F: J. Rail Rapid Transit. 227 (4): 376–391. https://doi.org/10.1177/0954409713480439.
Auer, F. 2004. “Gleislagequalitätsanalyse zur Instandhaltungsoptimierung (Track-quality analysis for the practical optimization of maintenance).” [In German.] Spec. ETR Austria. 1: 838–844.
Austrian Standards. 2017. Railway applications—Track—Track geometry quality—Part 6: Characterisation of track geometry quality. ÖNORM EN 13848-6. Vienna, Austria: Austrian Standards.
Caetano, L. F., and P. F. Teixeira. 2016. “Predictive maintenance model for ballast tamping.” J. Transp. Eng. 142 (4): 04016006. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)TE.1943-5436.0000825.
Drozdziel, J., and B. Sowinski. 2008. “Simulation of railway track deterioration influenced by ballast stiffness and dry friction.” In Vol. 103 of WIT transactions on the built environment—Computers in railways XI, 693–702. Southampton, UK: WIT Press.
Faiz, R., and S. Singh. 2009. “Information analysis of rail track for predictive maintenance.” WESEAS Trans. Comput. 8 (7): 1123–1133.
Famurewa, S., T. Xin, M. Rantatalo, and U. Kumar. 2013. “Optimisation of maintenance track possession time: A tamping case study.” Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part F: J. Rail Rapid Transit. 229 (1): 12–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0954409713495667.
Glantz, S. A., B. K. Slinker, and T. B. Neilands. 2016. Primer of applied regression & analyses of variances. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Gular, H., S. Jovanovic, and G. Evren. 2011. “Modelling railway track geometry deterioration.” Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. Transp. 164 (2): 65–75. https://doi.org/10.1680/tran.2011.164.2.65.
Guo, R., B. Han, and F. Wang. 2010. “Relation between railway track alignment irregularity and gross passing tonnage.” In Proc., 7th Int. Conf. on Traffic and Transportation Studies (ICTTS). Reston, VA: ASCE. https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784411230.
Holzfeind, J., and R. Hummitzsch. 2008. “Qualitätsverhalten von Gleisen (Quality behaviour of track).” [In German.] ZEV Rail Glasers Annalen. 132 (6–7): 212–224.
Landgraf, M., and F. Hansmann. 2019. “Fractal analysis as an innovative approach for evaluating the condition of railway tracks.” Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part F: J. Rail Rapid Transit. 233 (6): 596–605. https://doi.org/10.1177/0954409718795763.
Madejski, J., and J. Grabczyk. 2002. “Continuous geometry measurement for diagnostics of track and switches.” In Proc., Int. Conf. on Switches: Switch to Delft. Delft, Netherlands: Delft Univ. of Technology.
Quiroga, L., and E. Schnieder. 2012. “Heuristic forecasting of geometry deterioration of high speed railway tracks.” In Proc., Computer Aided Systems Theory—EUROCAST 2011, 609–616. Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27579-1_78.
Röthlisberger, F., G. Schmutz, E. Kurzen, J. Däppen, and E. Würsch. 2005. “Zertrümmerungn von Schotterkörnern durch Gleisstopfungen (Ballast grain destruction through track tamping).” [In German.] EI Eisenbahningenieur. 56 (10): 18–21.
Rousseeuw, P. J., and M. Hubert. 2011. “Robust statistics for outlier detection.” Wiley Interdiscip. Rev.: Data Min. Knowl. Discovery. 1 (1): 73–79. https://doi.org/10.1002/widm.2.
Sadeghi, J. 2010. “Development of railway track geometry indexes based on statistical distribution of geometry data.” J. Transp. Eng. 136 (8): 693–700. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-947X(2010)136:8(693).
Sadeghi, J., M. Fathali, and N. Boloukian. 2009. “Development of a new track geometry assessment technique incorporating rail cant factor.” Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part F: J. Rail Rapid Transit. 223 (3): 255–263. https://doi.org/10.1243/09544097JRRT237.
Sadeghi, J., H. Heydari, and E. A. Doloei. 2010. “Improvement of railway maintenance approach by developing a new railway condition index.” J. Transp. Eng. 143 (8): 04017037. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-947X(2010)136:8(693).
Veit, P. 2007. “Track quality—Luxury or necessity?” In RTR special maintenance & renewal, 8–12. Hamburg: Eurail Press.
Vidovic, I. 2016. Das Gleislageverhalten nach Einbau einer Tragschicht (The track behaviour after formation rehabilitation). [In German.] Graz, Austria: Graz Univ. of Technology.
Vidovic, I., M. Landgraf, and S. Marschnig. 2017. “Impact of substructure improvement on track quality.” In Proc., 3rd Int. Symp. Railway Geotechnical Engineering. Paris: French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks.
Xu, P., R. Liu, F. Wang, Q. Sun, and H. Teng. 2011. “A novel description method for track irregularity evolution.” Int. J. Comput. Intell. Syst. 4 (6): 1358–1366. https://doi.org/10.1080/18756891.2011.9727886.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146 • Issue 5 • May 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 18, 2019
Accepted: Oct 21, 2019
Published online: Mar 14, 2020
Published in print: May 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Aug 14, 2020
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.