Increased railway infrastructure capacity through improved maintenance practices

Abstract: The expansion of economic activities and increasing mobility of people on short, medium and long distance trips is an issue that requires attention in the transport industry. The need to address this demanding issue in a sustainable and economically efficient way is the core of general capacity challenge in railway industries. This informs the strategic objective of ensuring an efficient and competitive mode of transportation by many infrastructure managers including Swedish Transport Administration. An aspect of railway infrastructure management which is promising for the enhancement of existing infrastructure capacity is the improvement of maintenance process. The frequency of traffic interruption due to infrastructure failure, reduction of functional performance due to infrastructure degradation and length of track possession time are incidences limiting operational availability of railway infrastructure and capacity thereof. Achieving the goal of supporting the inherent capacity of existing railway infrastructure requires implementation of effective & efficient practices for large and small impact maintenance tasks. This research has addressed the above mentioned concerns by studying the opportunities which maintenance presents towards enhancing the capacity of existing railway infrastructure. Outsourcing aspect of maintenance organisation has been studied and a conceptual framework to facilitate the implementation of performance based maintenance contracting is proposed. This will enable the achievement of quantity and quality requirements of traffic performance. Furthermore a risk assessment procedure has been presented to identify bottlenecks restricting the capacity on any line and also for continuous improvement has been suggested. A model for planning and scheduling of tamping action has been presented. This will lead to reduced track possession time and minimum cost of intervention while geometry quality is kept at desirable level. Case studies on the above procedures and model have been presented to demonstrate their application for maintenance improvement. The outcome of this study is development of effective maintenance principles that should serve as basis for maintenance improvement programme to support reliable and inherent capacity of existing railway network. This improvement covers organisational and technical performance, all enhancing the possibility to increase the capacity of railway network.