Optimal Transport Theory for Railway Track Safety Applications

Optimal mass transport (OMT) is an optimization problem that determines a method of moving mass or value from one function to another in the most efficiently and optimally. Using the ideas of OMT, this technical note aims to formulate and solve an OMT model for railway track safety. The inputs for the analysis include (a) geometry data, (b) rail defect, (c) subsurface condition, and (d) tonnage. The technical note only presents the steps in achieving a complete OMT analysis. Therefore, the idea of the note is to serve as an illustration of the effectiveness of OMT in railway engineering applications. This article is available in the ASME Digital Collection at https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4064787.