Advances in modern machine learning techniques has encouraged interest in the development of vehicle health monitoring (VHM) systems. These techniques are useful for the reduction of maintenance and inspection requirements of railway systems. The performance of rail vehicles running on a track is limited by the lateral instability and track irregularities of a railway wagon. In this study, a fo...

This paper develops a new decision making method for optimal planning of railway maintenance operations using hybrid Model Predictive Control (MPC). A linear dynamic model is used to describe the evolution of the health condition of a segment of the railway track. The hybrid characteristics arise from the three possible control actions: performing no maintenance, performing corrective maintenan...

Wireless communications and modern machine learning techniques have jointly been applied in the recent development of vehicle health monitoring (VHM) systems. The performance of rail vehicles running on railway tracks is governed by the dynamic behaviors of railway bogies especially in the cases of lateral instability and track irregularities. In this study we have proposed a system to monitor ...

Over its life cycle, railway ballast undergoes changes to its fabric structure due to train loading and maintenance (e.g. tamping). Understanding these changes and linking them quantitatively to the loading regime has the potential to inform improved designs for new track and more cost-effective maintenance of the existing network. However, a method for recovering samples of ballast from in ser...

New railway legislation in Sweden has increased the need for transparent access charges on the Swedish railway network. We estimate cost functions for infrastructure operation, maintenance and renewal in the Swedish national railway network, using unobserved effects models and calculate marginal costs for railway infrastructure wear and tear. We find evidence of unobserved fixed effects at a tr...

In present study, a mathematical model of the vehicle–floating slab track (FST) interaction is established to investigate the coupled behaviour of vehicle–track system. The FST is modelled as the double Euler -Bernoulli beam including the rail and slab. The railway vehicle is simplified as a multi-rigid-body model. The wheel–rail interface is treated using a nonlinear Hertzian contact model, co...

Carbon pollution has become a sensitive topic across the globe in recent times. In Australia, incentive has been provided to industry in order to reduce carbon emissions in heavy polluting industries. The railway transportation system is one of the industries expected to reduce the emissions and contribute to a long term reduction strategy, although comparatively rail sector contributes much le...

Track Irregularity has a significant influence on the safety of train operation. Due to the fact that the extremely large number of factors affect track irregularity, it is challenging to find a concise yet effective mathematical method to describe the evolution of track irregularity. In this paper, inspection data generated by GJ-4 track inspection cars from Jinan Railway Bureau in China were ...

Transition zones in railway tracks are locations with considerable changes in the rail-supporting structure. Typically, they are located near engineering structures, such as bridges, culverts and tunnels. In such locations, severe differential settlements often occur due to the different material properties and structure behavior. Without timely maintenance, the differential settlement may lead...