Stephen Mayowa Famurewa

Optimisation of maintenance track possession time: A tamping case study

Optimum allocation and efficient utilisation of track possession time are becoming important topics in railway infrastructure management due to increasing capacity demands. This development and other requirements of modern infrastructure management necessitate the improvement of planning and scheduling of large-scale maintenance activities such as tamping. It is therefore necessary to develop short-, medium- and long-term plans for performing tamping on a network or track section within a definite time horizon. To this end, two key aspects of infrastructure maintenance planning are considered in this paper, deterioration modelling and scheduling optimisation. An exponential deterioration function is applied to model the geometry quality of a series of 200 m segments of a 130 km line section, and an empirical model for recovery after tamping intervention is developed. These two models are subsequently used to generate a methodology to optimise a schedule for tamping intervention by minimising the total cost of intervention including the cost of track possession while geometry quality is ascertained to be within a desirable limit. The modelling considers two types of tamping interventions, preventive and corrective, with different intervention limits and tamping machines. The result of this paper suggests a tamping plan which will lead to optimum allocation of track possession time while maintaining the track geometry quality within specified limits.

A study of railway wheel profile parameters used as indicators of an increased risk of wheel defects

The capacity demands on railways will increase in the future, as will demands for a robust and available system. The availability of a railway system is dependent on the condition of its infrastructure and rolling stock. To inspect rolling stock so as to prevent damage to the track due to faulty wheels, infrastructure managers normally install wayside monitoring systems along the track. Such systems indicate, for example, wheels that fall outside the defined safety limits and have to be removed from service to prevent further damage to the track. Due to the nature of many wayside monitoring systems, which only monitor vehicles at defined points along the track, damage may be induced on the track prior to fault detection at the location of the system. Such damage can entail capacity-limiting speed reductions and manual track inspections before the track can be reopened for traffic. The number of wheel defects must therefore be kept to a minimum. In this paper, wheel profile parameters measured by a wayside wheel profile measurement system, installed along the Swedish Iron Ore Line, are examined and related to warning and alarm indications from a wheel defect detector installed on the same line. The study shows that an increased wheel wear, detectable by changes in the wheel profile parameters, could be used to reduce the risk of capacity-limiting wheel defect failure events and their reactive measures.

Implementation of performance based maintenance contracting in railway industries

The achievement of maintenance objectives to support the overall business objectives is the pursuit of any maintenance department. Using in-house or outsourced maintenance service provider is a decision which poses challenge in the management of maintenance function. Should the decision be for outsourcing, the next concern is the selection of the most appropriate strategy suitable for the business environment, structure and philosophy. In an effort to improve maintenance function so as to deliver set objectives, some infrastructure managers adopted the approach of outsourcing maintenance function, giving larger responsibilities to maintenance service providers called contractors. Moreover, such change requires adequate attention to meet the pressing need of achieving the designed capacity of the existing railway infrastructure and also support a competitive and sustainable transport system. This paper discusses performance based railway infrastructure maintenance contracting with its issues and challenges. The approach of this article is review of literature and as well as synthesis of practices. A framework to facilitate the successful implementation of performance based railway infrastructure maintenance is presented. Also a performance monitoring system is proposed to assess the outcome and identify improvement potentials of the maintenance outsourcing strategy. A case study is given to demonstrate the monitoring of a typical maintenance activity that can be outsourced using this outsourcing strategy.

Reliability and measurement accuracy of a condition monitoring system in an extreme climate: A case study of automatic laser scanning of wheel profiles

The Iron Ore Line (Malmbanan) is a 473 km long track section located in northern Sweden and has been in operation since 1903. This track section stretches through two countries, namely Sweden and Norway, and the main part of the track runs on the Swedish side, where the owner is the Swedish Government and the infrastructure manager is Trafikverket (the Swedish Transport Administration). The ore trains are owned and managed by the freight operator and mining company LKAB. Due to the high axle load exerted by transportation of the iron ore, 30 tonnes, and the high demand for a constant flow of ore and pellets, the track and wagons must be monitored and maintained on a regular basis. The condition of the wagon wheel is one of the most important aspects in this connection, and here the wheel profile plays an important role. For this reason an automatic laser-based wheel profile monitoring system (WPMS) has been installed on this line using a system lifecycle approach that is based on the reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS) approach for railways. The system was prepared and installed and is being operated in a collaborative project between the freight operator and infrastructure manager. The measurements are used to diagnose the condition of the wheels, and to further optimize their maintenance. This paper presents a study of the concepts and ideas of the WPMS, and the selection, installation and validation of the equipment using a system lifecycle approach that is based on RAMS for railways. Results from the profile measurements and validation are shown. The system’s reliability during performance in extreme climate conditions, with severe cold and large quantities of snow, is presented. Then the benefits, perceived challenges and acquired knowledge of the system are discussed, and an improved V-model for the lifecycle approach is presented.

Maintenance analysis for continuous improvement of railway infrastructure performance

Railway transport system is massive and complex, and as such it requires effective maintenance to achieve the business goal of safe, economic and sustainable transportation of passengers and goods. The growing demand for improved service quality and capacity target by railway infrastructure managers requires appropriate maintenance analysis to facilitate continuous improvement of infrastructure performance. This paper presents the application of risk matrix as a maintenance analysis method for the identification of track zones that are bottlenecks that limit operational capacity and quality. Furthermore, an adapted criticality analysis method is proposed to create a hierarchical improvement list for addressing the problem of train mission interruption and reduced operational capacity. A case study of a line section of the Swedish network is presented. The result classifies the zones on the line section into different risk categories based on their contribution to loss of capacity and punctuality. In addition, an improvement list for the lower-level system is presented to facilitate maintenance decisions and continuous improvement at both operational and strategic levels.

Condition monitoring and e-maintenance solution of railway wheels

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the failure-driven capacity consumption of wheels on the track, to determine whether there are some relations to vehicle wheel configurations that show a larger amount of failures, and to ascertain the influence of the temperature and the travelling direction of the train on the number of events. This information can be used to develop prognostic health management so that more track capacity can be gained without modifications, re-building or re-investments. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents a study of 1,509 warning and alarm events concerning train wheels. The data come from the infrastructure managers wheel defect detectors and wheel profile measurement system. These data have been analysed and processed to find patterns and connections to different vehicles, travelling directions and temperatures. Findings – Lower temperatures increase the probability of wheels having high vertical forces. Trains with different wheel configurations ...

Augmented utilisation of possession time : Analysis for track geometry maintenance

The demand for increased capacity on existing railway networks is a challenge for many Europe-based infrastructure managers; addressing this challenge requires augmented utilisation of track possession time. It is considered that large-scale maintenance tasks such as geometry maintenance can be improved; thus, reducing the on-track maintenance time and allowing more traffic. In this study, an analysis of track geometry maintenance was performed with the objective of reducing the required possession time. The procedure and models for planning and optimizing track geometry maintenance are presented. A statistical model that uses a simulation approach was used to determine the condition of the track geometry, and a schedule optimization problem was formulated to support intervention decisions and optimize the track possession time. The results of the case study show that optimizing the maintenance shift length and cycle length are opportunities to reduce the extent of track possession required for the maintenance of the track geometry. In addition, continuous improvement of the tamping process through lean analysis promises about a 45% reduction in the required possession time for a tamping cycle.

Grey-system-theory-based model for the prediction of track geometry quality

The quality of track geometry is an important aspect in railway engineering, as it reflects any deviations and thus the actual condition of a track. Monitoring and prediction of a relevant geometry quality parameter provides an opportunity for effective maintenance, thus creating the advantages of extending the life of the asset, reducing maintenance costs and minimizing possession time requirements. Effective maintenance practice requires a good understanding of the behaviour of track structures over time and also prediction of its condition using only a few inputs. This paper presents a grey-system-theory-based model for predicting track irregularity. Three variants of the grey model are presented and their performances are compared with simple linear and exponential models. Regression models and the grey-system-theory-based models are used to obtain the standard deviation of the longitudinal level from a series of geometry inspection data. The overall performances of the models are evaluated in terms of the regression and prediction accuracies, and it is shown that a Fourier series modification of the grey model has the best performance and the minimum error. The contribution of this paper is the creation of a prediction model for track geometry quality, which is essential for planning and scheduling of preventive geometry maintenance.

A Nordic heavy haul experience and best practices

This article summarizes the experiences gained at the Nordic heavy haul line “Malmbanan” located in Northern Sweden and Norway during the years 2007 to 2015 and the resulting best practice. Unique long-term information of field trials and monitoring from the on-going development for maintenance of rail and wheel has been described. The reported results come from the rail profile measurements using MiniProf and HC-recordings with Eddy-current devices and visual inspection on 43 test sections. The monitoring has been continuous since the project started, to reveal a deep insight into the complex wheel–rail interaction and provide understanding of the effect of applying optimized specifications. This was particularly important in view of the increasing traffic load that contributed to doubling of the yearly grinding campaigns. This article presents in particular the new MB5 profile, the wear rate behaviour between two different curves, impacts of gauge widening on rail rolling contact fatigue and the speed of gauge widening as well as the seasonal impact on the crack propagation. The presently applied maintenance strategy is discussed together with other experiences. The article finishes with some conclusions and an outlook into further work.

Process Mining for Maintenance Decision Support

In carrying out maintenance actions, there are several processes running simultaneously among different assets, stakeholders, and resources. Due to the complexity of maintenance process in general, there will be several bottlenecks for carrying out actions that lead to reduction in maintenance efficiency, increase in unnecessary costs and a hindrance to operations. One of the tools that is emerging to solve the above issues is the use Process Mining tools and models. Process mining is attaining significance for solving specific problems related to process such as classification, clustering, discovery of process, prediction of bottlenecks, developing of process workflow, etc. The main objective of this paper is to utilize the concept of process mining to map and comprehend a set of maintenance reports mainly repair or replacement from some lines on the Swedish railway network. To attain the above objective, the reports were processed to extract out time related maintenance parameters such as administrative, logistic and repair times. Bottlenecks are identified in the maintenance process and this information will be useful for maintenance service providers, infrastructure managers, asset owners and other stakeholders for improvement and maintenance effectiveness.