Safety of wheels and rails is one of the key issues for railway and mass transit transportation administrations. Integrity of these fundamental components is relevant as the demand for safety rises continuously because of the higher speed, higher intensity, and a bigger amount of passengers and freight services on the networks. 

Frequent monitoring of tracks and of vehicles is also essential in order to plan proper and cost-effective maintenance. Detection of profile (transverse) and longitudinal wear and irregularities at an early stage allows for better scheduling of maintenance, avoiding the development of dangerous conditions.

Advance maintenance planning also reduces costs since the human and equipment resources can be better used. Besides, accurate maintenance decreases the acoustic pollution due to bad interaction between wheel and track: this is relevant especially within country borders.

A correct monitoring allows to optimise maintenance interventions reducing costs and increasing at the same time transport security and comfort.

Qu
ality of infrastructure is crucial for reliability, capacity and safety of the national rail network as well as the Trans European Transport Network for Rail.

Improving safety of rail transportation, decreasing the maintenance costs of infrastructures and developing the overall technological content of the rail sector are priorities of the European Union transportation policy; the European Commission actually funds the research and development of new technologies in this strategic sector by approving and supporting numerous research projects. In fact in the CRAFT project titled TRACKS, funded under the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development – SME Specific Measures of the European Commission–  ,Tecnogamma has developed, jointly with RATP and Politecnico di Milano, a laser device to measure rail profile wear which is currently installed on a RATP vehicle.