TCM - Track Condition Monitoring
Overview
Objectives:
The project is to increase the international knowledge on track condition monitoring in order to increase the performance of the infrastructure managers’ maintenance process by applying monitoring knowledge in the best possible way.
The project will give insight into the railway infrastructure systems that cause low RAMS (Reliability Availability Maintainability and Safety) -performance and high maintenance cost. For these systems (the so-called RAMS-killers and Cost-drivers) the project will investigate the processes where RAMS and costs are influenced. The project results will indicate how these processes can be improved by the appropriate use of monitoring information.
For situations that surpass the national level, international standardisation will be proposed.
Methodology:
High level study to identify the most important 'RAMS killers' and 'cost drivers' in Europe, in general switches and crossings are responsible for many reliability and availability issues, while track geometry durability and rail head quality were found to bet the main maintenance cost drivers. Therefore the PPIMS method was applied for three topics covering the three RAMS killers and cost drivers: rolling contact fatigue (RCF), maintenance and monitoring, track geometry maintenance and recording and maintenance and inspection of rail crossings and switches. Current and best practices were discussed and reported for each of the topics. Suggestions were given for further optimisation of the condition monitoring practices.
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