The impact of summer heatwaves on railway track geometry maintenance

Elevated summer temperatures are a disrupting factor on the rail network. Due to risk of track buckling under thermal expansion forces, geometry maintenance must be delayed during heatwaves, leading an overall decreased network availability and reliability. Track asset management support tools used plan schedule variety activities, with tamping stoneblowing being primary activities for maintenance. No seen in literature consider influences weather scheduling delivery This paper describes Petri net modelling approach railway management. is demonstrated highly flexible method able capture complexities degradation, inspection, maintenance, predict evolution quality over time. Different strategies tested, varying degradation thresholds, inspection intervals, policy decisions, response times. Excessively hot introduced as inhibiting all resulting extended periods where interventions delayed. Simulation results show that frequent timely could followed attain performing resilient system. tool added suite by industry, providing guidance through season heatwave disruptions expected.