Developing an Enhanced Short-Range Railroad Track Condition Prediction Model for Optimal Maintenance Scheduling

As railroad infrastructure becomes older and older and rail transportation is developing towards higher speed and heavier axle, the risk to safe rail transport and the expenses for railroad maintenance are increasing. The railroad infrastructure deterioration (prediction) model is vital to reducing the risk and the expenses. A short-range track condition prediction method was developed in our previous research on railroad track deterioration analysis. It is intended to provide track maintenance managers with two or three months of track condition in advance to schedule track maintenance activities more smartly. Recent comparison analyses on track geometrical exceptions calculated from track condition measured with track geometry cars and those predicted by the method showed that the method fails to provide reliable condition for some analysis sections. This paper presented the enhancement to the method. One year of track geometry data for the Jiulong-Beijing railroad from track geometry cars was used to conduct error analyses and comparison analyses. Analysis results imply that the enhanced model is robust to make reliable predictions. Our in-process work on applying those predicted conditions for optimal track maintenance scheduling is discussed in brief as well.