Improvement of Railway infrastructure Capacity through effective Maintenance

Program: Effective maintenance execution and Human Factors
Researchers: Stephen Famurewa, Behzad Ghodrati, Matti Rantatalo & Uday Kumar
Sponsor: Trafikverket
Duration: 2010 – 2012

The management of outages or track possession time for maintenance is an aspect of railway infrastructure management with promising potential. The allocation and utilization of possession time for maintenance requires improvement if the track design capacity and reliable service is to be achieved. The required improvement is not only limited to preventive maintenance but also extends to the strategy of handling unexpected interruptions. A typical improvement framework designed for the enhancement of capacity and quality of service on existing infrastructure is shown in the left hand Figure.

The project involves identification of processes, activities or even subsystems that restrain the flow of traffic, limiting the capacity or cause delay on a line or network. A case study to identify critical higher level systems (traffic areas represented with numerical code) on a selected track section is presented in the right hand figure. Other key issue addressed in the project is the analysis of intervention measures using relevant optimization techniques. The outcome of this will be reduction in track outages due to planned or unplanned maintenance activities and thereby improving the capacity situation of railway network.