Railway operators and track managers join forces in infrastructure measuring
Railway infrastructure monitoring becomes more and more sophisticated. Infrastructure managers analyse not only the conditions of the rails but also the trains running on it. Sometimes, infrastructure managers know more about the rolling stock of...Read more
‘Railway companies have to share information to move forward’
Voestalpine’s Metal Engineering Division has been restructured. As of April 1, 2018. the Rail, Turnout Systems and Signalling Technology business segments were officially regrouped under the ‘Railway Systems’ umbrella. The new business areas include urban...Read more
TU Vienna creates model to predict service life for tram infrastructure
Until recently, Viennese tram operator Wiener Linien had no centralized database containing net-wide infrastructure data. After implementing an infrastructure database, the operator is now working with the Technical University of Vienna to create a model...Read more
‘International rail sector can learn a lot from Scandinavian rail companies’
The international rail sector can learn a lot by looking at Scandinavian rail companies, says Peter Boom from Voestalpine Signaling. “In Scandinavia, they like to use new technologies and are often ahead of other countries.” The...Read more
‘Digitalisation is challenging but crucial for the railway sector’
“Digitalisation is a very challenging topic for the railway sector, but I think it can ultimately revolutionise the sector,” Johannes Neuhold from the Graz University of Technology argues. “The key point is to take the...Read more‘Regulations block optimal use of big data’
Much more can be done with data than is currently the case, but regulations get in the way, says Sytse Bisschop from Dutch infrastructure manager ProRail. Data can only be used optimally if regulations keep...Read more
‘Use machine learning to predict track maintenance’
Machine learning is an important asset to predict where track maintenance will be needed, Dirk Bothof of Asset Insight says. Machine learning is an artificial intelligence technique that gives computers the ability to learn. Asset...Read more
TU Graz is using acoustic waves to detect track failures
Graz University of Technology wants to use acoustic waves to detect track failures and worn components. In many countries, distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is already being used to identify the location of trains. Ivan Vidovic is Research...Read more
‘The Netherlands can perform as well as Japan by simplifying its rail network’
If the Netherlands wants its rail network to perform as well as Japan, the impact of disruptions on the track must be reduced. That can be done by disentangling the rail network and combining the...Read more‘Combine data with observations and physics for track maintenance’
“Data only acquires meaning when it is combined with physical observations and models. Then it becomes information”, says Diego Galar, Professor of Condition Monitoring at Luleå University of Technology (LTU). “You need to know the...Read more
‘Railway sector must face challenge of loss of expertise with digitalisation’
All over the world, human resource management strategies have lead to a loss of experts in the field of railway infrastructure management, according to Johannes Neuhold and Matthias Landgraf at Graz University of Technology. “The only chance...Read more‘It is important to know where, when and how to maintain the tracks’
As the tracks are being used more and more worldwide, the timeframe in which the infrastructure can be serviced becomes shorter. Especially on busy tracks, it is no more than a couple of hours per...Read more