The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Benefits from the remote monitoring of railway assets

Benefits from the remote monitoring of railway assets
Benefits from the remote monitoring of railway assets
Railway infrastructure already has some ‘smart’ characteristics, in that it ‘knows’ where trains are located and can sometimes detect track and other equipment faults. There is considerable scope to increase these capabilities. There is also a significant and urgent need for such improvements: railways have limited operational flexibility and face increasing passenger and freight traffic demand on existing infrastructure. The reliable provision of additional capacity requires improved system ‘self-knowledge’ for traffic control and management purposes, as well as for system reliability and safety. The use of smart infrastructure for fault prediction and the guidance of preventive maintenance helps to maintain operational capacity. This approach also helps to reduce track access requirements for traditional maintenance and renewals activities, thus increasing network availability and total capacity. Climate change presents the railway industry with significant challenges, notably in terms of flooding and earthworks failures resulting from increased rainfall intensity. Smart infrastructure includes the prediction and monitoring of such events to maintain safety and enable the timely implementation of operational contingency plans. This paper draws upon a range of sources to identify the needs for and potential benefits of increased deployment of smart infrastructure and other assets on railways in Britain and elsewhere.
Railway systems; Sustainability; Infrastructure planning
0965-092X
63-72
Armstrong, John
5fafa91e-39c1-4d1d-a331-564558aaa638
Preston, Jonathan
ef81c42e-c896-4768-92d1-052662037f0b
Armstrong, John
5fafa91e-39c1-4d1d-a331-564558aaa638
Preston, Jonathan
ef81c42e-c896-4768-92d1-052662037f0b

Armstrong, John and Preston, Jonathan (2019) Benefits from the remote monitoring of railway assets. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Transport, 172 (2), 63-72. (doi:10.1680/jtran.16.00155).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Railway infrastructure already has some ‘smart’ characteristics, in that it ‘knows’ where trains are located and can sometimes detect track and other equipment faults. There is considerable scope to increase these capabilities. There is also a significant and urgent need for such improvements: railways have limited operational flexibility and face increasing passenger and freight traffic demand on existing infrastructure. The reliable provision of additional capacity requires improved system ‘self-knowledge’ for traffic control and management purposes, as well as for system reliability and safety. The use of smart infrastructure for fault prediction and the guidance of preventive maintenance helps to maintain operational capacity. This approach also helps to reduce track access requirements for traditional maintenance and renewals activities, thus increasing network availability and total capacity. Climate change presents the railway industry with significant challenges, notably in terms of flooding and earthworks failures resulting from increased rainfall intensity. Smart infrastructure includes the prediction and monitoring of such events to maintain safety and enable the timely implementation of operational contingency plans. This paper draws upon a range of sources to identify the needs for and potential benefits of increased deployment of smart infrastructure and other assets on railways in Britain and elsewhere.

Text
Benefits from the Remote Monitoring of Railway Assets - Accepted Manuscript
Download (558kB)

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 11 April 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 2 June 2017
Published date: April 2019
Keywords: Railway systems; Sustainability; Infrastructure planning
Organisations: Transportation Group

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 408450
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/408450
ISSN: 0965-092X
PURE UUID: 6cf3f642-2101-425e-8e87-0de89cc0a8c3
ORCID for John Armstrong: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2648-6307
ORCID for Jonathan Preston: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-6866-049X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 20 May 2017 04:04
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:16

Export record

Altmetrics

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×