Managing risk boosts track safety

摘要

A new generation of track safety management tools has been developed to quantify and analyze the risk associated with key track failure modes. These risk-based assessment-tools have been shown to contribute directly to a reduction in track failures through their ability to selectively identify high-risk locations and bring remedial action to bear on these identified locations. The five model classes presented here all rely on research that has been developed over the past several decades, and are designed to be used in large-scale applications to identify potential failure sites across an entire route, division or railway system. The results have been clear and impressive. Use of risk-based test scheduling techniques reduces the risk of derailments. For example, in the case of broken-rail derailments, use of risk-based assessment and rail test scheduling to determine optimum rail test intervals, has resulted in a reduction in the rate of broken rails and broken-rail derailments by 30 percent or more. Likewise, full-scale applications of the buckling-risk assessment model resulted in a high percentage of high-risk sites identified for immediate action by local forces.