Strengthening the Rail Mode of Transport by Condition Based Preventive Maintenance

Abstract In recent years, the demands on railroad infrastructure operators have been rising by means of profitability, availability, safety, and punctuality. Here, the condition based preventive maintenance aims at strengthening the rail mode of transport through an optimized scheduling of maintenance actions taking account of the actual infrastructure condition and its expected further degradation. Two crucial aspects of such a predictive maintenance strategy are 1) the reliable precise localization of faults within a widespread, distributed infrastructure system, and 2) the consideration of parameter uncertainties by the prediction of the degradation trend for the near future of the infrastructure under study. Both aspects are addressed in this contribution, the challenges are highlighted and some illustrative, preliminary results are shown.