Operation and maintenance performance of rail infrastructure Model and Methods

Sammanfattning: Congestion of roads and sky, increasing energy costs and a demand to reduce emissions, have created a need to shift transportation from road and air to rail. Consequently, rail utilisation is increasing, adding stress to the rail infrastructure and time constraints to maintenance. At the same time, the performance and capacity of rail infrastructure are expected to be preserved or even improved. Railway performance and capacity can be enhanced by: expanding infrastructure; introducing better technology; and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of operation and maintenance. Performance measurement has shown to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of organisations, but the development and integration of performance measurements are essential. A key issue in performance measurement is the process of collecting, storing and converting data into information and knowledge, i.e. data analysis and presentation. Organisations use various systems and methods to collect and analyse data, but the analysis of the collected data to extract relevant information is often a challenge. With improved data analysis and performance measurement, rail transportation can meet the requirements of performance and capacity. Specifically, maintenance planning and optimisation of preventive maintenance can be made more effective, which can decrease interruptions of train operation, reduce costs and ensure safety. In this thesis, a model for monitoring and analysis of operation and maintenance performance of rail infrastructure is developed. The model includes various methods for analysis of operation and maintenance data. The work aims to facilitate improvements and optimisation of decision-making in railways. The thesis consists of two parts. The first part gives an introductory summary of the subject and research, followed by a discussion of the appended papers, an extension of the research and conclusions. The second part consists of five appended papers. The first paper concerns the development of a model for improving performance measurement of rail infrastructure. The second paper is a study of indicators related to rail infrastructure performance. The three subsequent papers are development of data analysis methods for: operational availability of rail infrastructure, composite indicators and maintenance costs. Keywords: operation and maintenance, indicators, performance measurement, maintenance cost, rail infrastructure, linear assets, preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, aggregation, composite indicators, cost-benefit analysis, decision support