Despite significant efforts throughout the last decades, the mechanisms behind the formation of squats — a form of rolling contact fatigue (RCF) damage in rails — are not fully understood. Proposed causes of initiation involve, but are not limited to, small initial rail surface irregularities which yield high contact stresses, rail corrugation and varying friction conditions. To complicate matt...

The products in the real-world application to be studied in this thesis are the rail cars used by BASF to transport products between plants and from plants to customers. The transported product poses minimum requirements on certain rail car characteristics (material, heating, etc.). These characteristics define a rail car type. Types with higher quality characteristics can be used as substitute...

The empirical evidence shows that travel time is crucial for rail transport to be a competitor to air transport. However, there are no papers testing whether travel time has a direct effect on airline pricing. This paper is a step towards filling this gap. We test and quantify the effect of rail travel time on airline fares, using unique data at flight-level. We find that airlines design pricin...

This paper outlines the historical development of the wheel and rail profiles currently used on railway vehicles. It also presents the key damage mechanisms involved in wheel-rail contact and summarises the methods that have recently been developed by railway engineers to predict the level of wheel and rail damage from these mechanisms. Tools for predicting the key damage modes of wear and roll...

In recent years, the rail transport has achieved rapid development. In assuming the responsibility of promoting the transport task of the economic development, it also faces greater challenges of the rapid growth of passenger volume and safety guarantee. To carry out research on rail traffic safety assessment has essential theoretical and practical significance in protecting public property and...

The wheel and rail interaction is the main influence on the dynamic response of a rail vehicle. Any changes in the wheel and rail will change the overall response of the vehicle. The condition monitoring challenge is to interpret these changes into useful condition information. This paper presents the results from initial feasibility studies into model-based condition monitoring at the wheel-ra...

In comparison with the other transportation modes, rail rapid transit already enjoys a higher degree of safety as it is designed with the exclusive right of way and the automatic train control and monitoring systems. Nevertheless, rail rapid transit systems are not free from serious accidents, which often led to human injuries and facility damages. The planning of accident prevention and emerge...

Commuter rail systems are widely regarded as an effective transportation alternative to reduce energy consumption and emissions in large urban areas. Use of commuter rail systems in the United States is on the rise, with annual ridership increasing by 28 percent between 1997 and 2007 [1]. With growing concerns about the sustainability and environmental impacts of transportation, modal energy ef...

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2374, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2013, pp. 190–200. DOI: 10.3141/2374-22 C. T. Rapp, M. S. Dersch, J. R. Edwards, and C. P. L. Barkan, Rail Transportation and Engineering Center, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana–Cham...