Int J Performability Eng ›› 2011, Vol. 7 ›› Issue (6): 545-554.doi: 10.23940/ijpe.11.6.p545.mag

• Original articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

A Simulation Approach to the Optimization of Railway Infrastructure Maintenance Strategies

LISANDRO M. QUIROGA and ECKEHARD SCHNIEDER   

  1. Technische Universit?t Braunschweig, Institute for Traffic Safety and Automation Engineering, Langer Kamp 8, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany

Abstract:

In recent years, new diagnosis systems for railway infrastructure have been developed and launched into market. Their major objective is to increase the availability of railway infrastructure and its external systems by means of preventive maintenance, anticipating malfunctions and failures. The acquisition and installation of such systems comprises the investment of large amounts of money. In order to predict the potential benefit, it would be meaningful to model the current infrastructure maintenance process and simulate the effects of the introduction of modifications, e.g., a diagnosis system. In this work a Petri net based modeling method for Monte Carlo simulation is presented, and validated by means of a case study of a French high speed line.