274

Monte Carlo simulation of railway track geometry

deterioration and restoration
L M Quiroga and E Schnieder
Institute for Traffic Safety and Automation Technologies, TU Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

The manuscript was received on 23 December 2010 and was accepted after revision for publication on 8 July 2011.

DOI: 10.1177/1748006X11418422

Abstract: Travelling safely and comfortably on high-speed railway lines requires excellent con-
ditions of the whole railway infrastructure in general and of the railway track geometry in par-
ticular. The maintenance process required to achieve such excellent conditions is complex
and expensive, demanding a large amount of both human and technical resources. In this
framework, choosing the right maintenance strategy becomes a critical issue. A reliable simu-
lation of the railway geometry ageing process would offer a great advantage for the optimiza-
tion of planning and scheduling of maintenance activities. A fundamental requirement for
such simulation is a statistical model describing the behaviour of the railway track geometry
deterioration as well as the effects of maintenance activities. The French railway operator
SNCF has been periodically measuring the geometrical characteristics of its high-speed net-
work since its commissioning (i.e. for more than 20 years now). These records are an excellent
data source to achieve a sound statistical description of the process.
In this paper a new system identification method to obtain such simulations is presented.
The proposed method uses a grey-box model: a model structure and its constraints are speci-
fied basing on previous knowledge of the process to be identified, and then the set of para-
meter values which best fits the signal measurements is searched. As previous knowledge
indicates that the process is non-linear, parameter values are searched by means of the
Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm, an iterative technique that finds a local minimum of a func-
tion that is expressed as the sum of squares of non-linear functions. Furthermore, the pre-
sented model is extended in order to analyse the effect of the variation of factors influencing
the ageing process (e.g. operational speed). Finally, the method is applied and validated with
real data of a French high-speed TGV line.

Keywords: maintenance, simulation, tamping, high speed railways

1 INTRODUCTION measure of travelling quality and safety. For these

Measuring and keeping railway geometry under
control are fundamental tasks of the railway infra-
structure maintenance process. Railway geometry is
responsible for the travelling comfort and the derail-
ment risk. If its deviation exceeds a certain limit
value, the travelling speed on that sector must be
reduced. Therefore, railway geometry is both a
*Corresponding author: Institute for Traffic Safety and
Automation Technologies, TU Braunschweig, Langer Kamp 8,
38106 Braunschweig, Germany.
email: quiroga@iva.ing.tu-bs.de
reasons the French railway operator SNCF has been
measuring periodically the geometrical characteris-
tics of its high-speed network since its commission-
ing, more than 20 years ago.
Figure 1 shows the measurements of the longitu-
dinal levelling (in French nivellement longitudinal,
NL) for a 1 km track sector for the last 20 years. The
NL parameter is the longitudinal mean deviation of
rails with respect to the ideal position, and it is con-
sidered representative of the general railway geome-
try deterioration [1]. By default the deterioration
grade increases with time, reflecting the track geo-
metry deterioration. Due to confidentiality reasons,

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part O: J. Risk and Reliability

Downloaded from pio.sagepub.com at Gazi University on May 3, 2015
 Monte Carlo simulation of railway track geometry deterioration and restoration
the measurement units are not shown. Degradation
decrements take place only when some mainte-
nance activity is performed. In Fig. 1 the mainte-
nance activities most relevant for track geometry are
included: tamping interventions. The bar heights
represent the fraction of the railway sector affected
by the maintenance activity. Tamping yields a
visually obvious effect, generating a sudden drop in
NL. Technical and human resources required
for performing tamping interventions are a major
cost factor in high-speed railway systems [2].
Furthermore, due to high logistical cost constraints,
most track geometry maintenance activities need to
be planned up to one year in advance.
These facts make it clear that the maintenance
process of railway track geometry is highly complex,
so predicting the effect of introducing changes in
the process is a very difficult task. The authors
believe that the possibility of simulating the degra-
dation–restoration process would be of great advan-
tage in this sense.
This paper is organized as follows: in section 2 an
overview of the track geometry ageing and degrada-
tion models found in the literature is given. In sec-
tion 3 a simulation method for the railway track
geometry degradation and restoration process is pre-
sented. It comprises an ageing and restoration model
which statistically describes the process based on
historical measurements, and then uses the Monte
Carlo method to obtain simulated process realiza-
tions. Then, in section 4, the model is applied in a
case study based on real data from a French high-
speed line, where the process characteristics
assumed in the model are confirmed. Finally, section
5 presents some concluding remarks.
The model here proposed will be part of a holistic
maintenance strategy optimization method for rail-
way infrastructures currently under development at
the TU Braunschweig [3]. In this framework, the
model is used to perform simulations of the com-
plete life cycle of the track adopting different main-
tenance strategies.
2 STATE OF THE ART
In order to obtain a sound forecasting of the course
of the track geometry quality, adequate ageing and
restoration models are required. In the literature
many such models can be found. In reference [4] 14
publications are listed. There are great differences
between the weights that in each paper are assigned
to each parameter influencing track geometry qual-
ity. This reveals that a universal characterization of
the track quality course has not been feasible so far.
Downloaded from pio.sagepub.com at Gazi University on May 3, 2015
275
The available models can be classified into two
types: (i) deterministic and (ii) stochastic. Next
some relevant models of both types are reviewed.
2.1 Deterministic models
Deterministic models use mainly polynomial [5],
exponential [6, 7] or multi-stage linear [8] models.
By means of system identification techniques (typi-
cally least squares) the parameter set that best fits
the measurement series is found. Figure 2 shows
schematically an example of track quality course
using the exponential model.
In reference [10] different approaches are used
for forecasting the railway geometry course on a
French TGV line. The best results are obtained by
the model which assumes an exponential growth of
the NL indicator. Finally, in reference [11], the
dependency between the value of NL after a tamp-
ing intervention and the number of tampings per-
formed since the last ballast renewal is investigated
and confirmed.
2.2 Stochastic models
The irregularities observed over the years have led
to modelling track geometry ageing as a stochastic
process. Reference [12], for instance, has modelled
an indicator of the track geometry quality by means
of a Markov chain [13]. Without maintenance inter-
ventions, the indicator can either grow or sink, but
the net ageing speed is always positive. The values
of the transition rates between states are calculated
basing on the measured data. Three state groups are
defined: for Z1, ., Za with a . 1 the track quality is
good, for Za + 1, ., Zb with b . a it is in alert state,
and for Zx with x . b a maintenance intervention is
required.
1
Meas. Values
Tampings
0.9
0.8
Long. levelling
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Year
Fig. 1 Course of longitudinal levelling degradation for
a railway sector
Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part O: J. Risk and Reliability
276
Another remarkable model can be found in
reference [14]. It uses a Gamma process [15] for
modelling the ageing process. The Gamma process
is a Lévy process with stationary, independent
Gamma-distributed increments; that is, under this
model ageing can only rise over time. The Gamma
process is defined by two parameters: a and b. For
each 200-metre sector these two parameters are
identified using a CART tree [16]. The range of
possible values of the indicator is divided into
four regions: intact, alert, intervention, and speed
reduction.
2.3 Data sources
Two possible data sources can be considered for
their implementation:
 Laboratory experiments, from which formulae
can be derived, which describe the track geome-
try quality course as functions of different para-
meters (typically axle weight, operational speed,
and total traffic).
 Measurement data. The availability of historical
measurements of the track geometry renders
possible the identification of formulae describing
the quality course in time.
The model hereby presented relies on measure-
ment data.
3 PROPOSED PROCESS MODEL
3.1 Model requirements
Keeping in mind that the main objective and inno-
vation of this work is to develop a method to run
Monte-Carlo-based simulations of the ageing and
restoration process of the track geometry, and in the
light of the literature analysed in section 2, three
basic requirements on the model to be developed
can be drawn:
 The growth of track geometry degradation must
be described by an exponential function.
 Both the growth rate and the value of NL after a
tamping intervention are dependant on the num-
ber of accumulated tampings.
 Stochastic features of the process must be expli-
citly considered random variables.
In this section a model is presented that fulfils
these requirements. It models both the growth con-
stant and the value of NL after tamping interventions
as log-normally distributed variables which are
Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part O: J. Risk and Reliability
Downloaded from pio.sagepub.com at Gazi University on May 3, 2015
L M Quiroga and E Schnieder
Longitudinal levelling
NL NLinit ebΔt
Intervention threshold
Tamping
reachable Quality
Life cycle
Time
Fig. 2 Schematic track geometry quality course using
an exponential model. Source: reference [9,
p. 407, Ó Handbuch Gleis]
dependant on the number n of accumulated tamping
interventions. Furthermore, in section 4.1 the statisti-
cal independence of NLinit and b (which is implicitly
assumed in the model) is investigated and in section
4.2 the postulated log-normality is confirmed.
3.2 Model hypothesis
The proposed process model relies on two assump-
tions, namely:
1. The degradation value NLinitn achieved after the
nth tamping intervention can be described as a
log-normally distributed stochastic variable
NLinitn ; LN (mNLinit (n), s2NLinit (n)) (1)
where m is the mean value and s2 is the variance.
2. The evolution of the degradation value between
two tamping activities can be described by an
exponential function of the form
NLinitn ebn (t2 tn ) + e(t) (2)
where t is the time and tn is the time at which the
last tamping activity has taken place, bn is a log-nor-
mally distributed stochastic variable
bn ;LN (mb (n), s2b (n)) (3)
and en(t) is a normally distributed variable with
mean value 0; that is
en (t);N (0, s2e ) (4)
Assumption (1) relies on the study on the effects
of tamping interventions on high-speed railway
lines presented in reference [1], while assumption
(3) is based on the model presented in reference [6],
which postulates that geometry degradation grows
exponentially between tamping interventions.
 Monte Carlo simulation of railway track geometry deterioration and restoration
According to these assumptions, for the model to
be applied it is necessary to find expressions for
mNLinit(n), sNLinit(n), mb(n), and sb(n). To obtain
these functions, it is necessary to have a database
with track geometry measurements on many railway
sectors for many years, including tamping activities
performed. In section 4 this identification is made
with the Levenberg–Marquardt process.
3.3 Model parameterization
Let NLi,n = {NLi(tinit), ., NLi(tend)} be the series
of available measurements of NL at sector i between
th nth and the (n + 1)th tamping interventions.
Then the minimization problem consists of
finding NLiniti,n and bi,n such that the function
c = NLiniti, n ebi, n t best fits the measured values;
NL(t)
that is, minimizes the total square error represented
by
X
tend
c
(NLt 2 NL(t)) 2
(5)
t = tinit
This is done at each 1-km-long sector and for each
period between tampings, obtaining for each sector
i and each period between tampings n the para-
meters NLiniti,n and bi,n. Additionally, the mean
quadratic value of the error signal, (i.e. the differ-
ence between the measured values and the fitted
curve) is recorded and then used to simulate the
measurement noise en(t).
It is well known from the literature [1, 10, 17] and
from practical experience that track geometry exhi-
bits a transient behaviour in the first months after a
tamping intervention, so measurements taken in the
first three months after an intervention are dis-
carded. Additionally, to rest assured that the real
behaviour of degradation is being fitted and not just
measurement noise, it is necessary to only fit data
sets where the time span between the first and last
sample is at least one complete year.
c
Since NL(t) is non-linear, for solving these mini-
mization problems [18], an open-source implemen-
tation of the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm (LMA)
[19], is used. The LMA is an iterative algorithm that
finds a local minimum of a function that is
expressed as the sum of squares of non-linear func-
tions. It can be regarded as a combination of stee-
pest descent and the Gauss–Newton method. When
the current solution is far from the local minimum,
the algorithm behaves like a steepest descent
method (i.e. slow) but guaranteed to converge.
When the current solution is close to the local mini-
mum, it becomes a Gauss–Newton method. The
Downloaded from pio.sagepub.com at Gazi University on May 3, 2015
277
next step is to find the functions mNLinit(n),
sNLinit(n), mb(n), and sb(n) which best fit the esti-
mated values.
3.4 Monte Carlo simulation process
The proposed process model can be used to per-
form Monte Carlo simulations following the flow-
chart of Fig. 3. Briefly described, the simulation
process consists of dicing NLinitn, bn and the mea-
surement noise e(t) and then calculating the process
value as NLinitn ebn (ttls ) + e(t) at each simulation
step, until the tamping condition is reached. At this
point, the number of accumulated tampings is
incremented and the process is repeated until the
simulation end condition is reached.
According to this the simulation only needs the
following input parameters:
 desired simulation start and end times;
 simulation step; and
 either
– the set of times at which tamping activities
should take place, or
– a degradation threshold at which, when
achieved, a maintenance activity should take
place.
These parameters are set by the user according to
the objectives of the simulation. In section 4 the
method is illustrated by means of an example.
3.5 Model adaptation to variable influencing
factors
The track railway geometry ageing process depends
on a number of factors. The process model used in
this work is based on the assumption that these fac-
tors remain constant in the course of the simulation
time. In the literature numerous papers on this
topic can be found. They are reviewed in reference
[4], according to which the effect of the change of a
parameter P on the geometry deviation can be
described with a function of the form (7). Equation
(7) means that knowing the degradation law for a
given value of P = p0 and the scaling factor aP, it is
possible to calculate the law that describes the age-
ing process for P = p1. The value of aP has been esti-
mated for the most relevant influencing factors by
different railway companies [4]
DNL(t) = NL(t)2NL(tn ) (6)
 aP
DNL(tjP = p1 ) p1
= (7)
DNL(tjP = p0 ) p0
Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part O: J. Risk and Reliability
278 L M Quiroga and E Schnieder

  aP
p1
Start = (NL(tjP = p0 )2NL(t = tn jP = p0 )) (12)
p0

n = 0; t = 0; tls = 0 NL(tjP = p1 ) = (NL(tjP = p0 )2NL(t = tn jP = p0 ))

 aP
p1 (13)
+ NL(t = tn jP = p0 )
dice NLinitn  bn p0

If the influencing parameters have not been con-

dice ε(t)
stant during the time interval included in the mea-
surements database (e.g. the daily tonnage has been
NL(t) = NLinitn ebn (t−tls ) + ε(t) increased) the system identification can be effected
by applying equation (14) to the measurements sub-
n++ t = t + Tsim jected to the changes
tls = t

NL(tjP = p0 ) = (NL(tjP = p1 )2NL(t = tn jP = p1 ))

yes  aP
tamping condition true? p0 (14)
+ NL(t = tn jP = p1 )
p1
no

The validity of (14) is subjected to the validity of

no
end condition true?
yes
End
Fig. 3 Flowchart of the applied Monte Carlo simula-
tion process. t is the simulation time, tls is the
time of the last tamping, Tsim is the simulation
step, n is the number of accumulated tamping
interventions, and NLinitn and bn are as speci-
fied in section 3
where tn is the time of the nth tamping intervention,
p1, p0 are the values of the parameter P before and
after its modification, respectively, and aP is a scal-
ing factor associated with P.
From the assumption that the longitudinal level
after the nth tamping intervention NLinitn is inde-
pendent of the parameter P, it follows that
NLinitn (t = tn jP = p0 ) = NLinitn (t = tn jP = p1 )
(8) for the parameter P and to the the scaling factor
aP being known. In particular, the variations of P
must remain in the range of values of P for which
the known aP is valid. For example, using a database
of a track where the operational speed is 80 km/h
would not be appropriate to make simulations at
330 km/h, because at 330 km/h the track geometry
degradation process is subject to phenomena that
are not observable at 80 km/h.
4 CASE STUDY
In this section the proposed method is applied to a
database of a high-speed TGV line, containing rail-
way track geometry measurements on about
250 km, for nearly 20 years. Running conditions and
maintenance parameters have been globally the
same all over this period. Therefore, it is not neces-
sary to apply the adaptation process described in
(8) section 3.5.

According to this assumption, equation (13) can 4.1 Analysis of the statistical independence of
be used for the conversion of a simulation made NLinit and b
with P = P0 into one with P = P1. This means that, for
As stated in section 3, one assumption of the pro-
instance, with the data of a track where trains have
cess model is the statistical independence of NLinit
been running at 250 km/h, a simulation with
and b. Figure 4 shows all (NLinit, b) pairs in the pre-
300 km/h can be made, as shown in section 4.4
viously mentioned database (i.e. the NL achieved
DNL(tjP = p1 ) : = NL(tjP = p1 )2NL(t = tn jP = p1 ) after a tamping intervention and the parameter b of
(9)
the ensuing curve NL(t) = NLinit ebt). No correlation
3:8 (10) can be recognized visually. Furthermore, the corre-
= NL(tjP = p1 )2NL(t = tn jP = p0 ) lation coefficient rNLinit,b using equation (15) yields
 aP 21.1031022. In view of these facts, the assumption
3:7 p1 (11) of statistical independence of NLinit and b seems to
= DNL(tjP = p0 )
p0 be reasonable

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part O: J. Risk and Reliability

Downloaded from pio.sagepub.com at Gazi University on May 3, 2015
 Monte Carlo simulation of railway track geometry deterioration and restoration 279

rNLinit, b = not converge to zero. The test is independent from

P P
n NLiniti bi 2 NLiniti
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
P P
n NLiniti2 2( NLiniti )2 n b2i 2( bi )2
4.2 Analysis of the log-normality of NLinit and b
The second assumption of the process model is the
log-normality of NLinitn and bn. In order to test its
validity the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test is performed
for both variables, for n 2 1, ., 10. The
Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (KS test) is a statistical
test on the equality of two probability distributions
[20]. This test reveals if a stochastic variable follows
an a priori distribution. The null and the alternate
hypothesis can be stated as follows:
Null hypothesis: H0 : Fx(x) = F0(x); that is, the sto-
chastic variable x follows the probability distribu-
tion F0.
Alternative hypothesis: H1 : Fx(x) 6¼ F0(x); that is,
the stochastic variable x follows other probability
distribution than F0.
The KS test compares the empirical distribution
function Fn with F0 by means of the test statistic
(16), where sup is the supremum. Thus dn is the
maximal divergence between the empirical distribu-
tion Fn and the probability distribution F0 which x
hypothetically follows
dn = kFn 2F0k = sup jFn (x)2F0 (x)j
x
After the Glivenko–Cantelli theorem, if the sample
comes from distribution F(x), the empirical distribu-
tion tends to converge to the distribution of x; that
is, dn tends to zero. On the other hand, if the sam-
ples do not come from the distribution F(x), dn will
P the hypothetical distribution F0.
bi
ffiqffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
P P ffi (15) If the value of the test statistic dn is greater than
the tabulated critical value, the null hypothesis is
rejected. The critical value da forpaffiffiffiffifficonfidence level
a = 5% is calculated as da = 1, 36= N , where N is the
size of the sample. Thus if dn \ da holds, H0 will be
accepted and otherwise rejected.
In the following, KS tests for NLinitn for n 2 1, .,
10, that is, for a total of ten stochastic variables, are
performed. The null hypothesis is thus
H0 : NLinitn ; LN (^ ^ 2NLinit (n))
mNLinit (n), s (17)
where
^ NLinit (n): Mean value of the natural logarithm of
m
the sample of NLinitn; that is, NL after the nth
tamping intervention; and
s 2
^ NLinit (n): Variance of the natural logarithm of the
sample of NLinitn
In Table 1 the results are shown. For all ten vari-
ables the null hypothesis is accepted.
For the parameter bn it is necessary to proceed
analogously. KS tests for NLinitn for n 2 1, ., 10;
that is, for a total of ten stochastic variables, are per-
formed. The null hypothesis is thus
H0 : bn ;LN (^ ^ 2b (n))
mb (n), s (18)
where
(16) ^ b (n): Mean value of the natural logarithm of the
m
sample of bn, that is b after the nth tamping
intervention
^ b2 (n): Variance of the natural logarithm of the
s
sample of bn
The results are shown in Table 2. Also here all da are less
than dmax so the null hypothesis is accepted as well.

4.3 System identification

1.4
In this section the results obtained by applying the
1.2 error minimization procedure described in section 3
1

0.8 Table 1 Results of the KS test for NLinitn

NLinit

n N da dmax da/dmax
0.6
1 112 0.0718 0.128 55.8
0.4 2 190 0.0544 0.986 55.2
3 177 0.0559 0.102 54.7
0.2 4 137 0.113 0.116 97.4
5 96 0.0863 0.138 62.2
0 6 76 0.0845 0.156 54.2
-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 7 51 0.0893 0.190 46.8
b 8 31 0.0804 0.244 32.9
9 20 0.158 0.304 51.9
Fig. 4 NLinit versus the parameter b of the ensuing 10 13 0.234 0.377 62.1
curve NL(t) = NLinit ebt

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part O: J. Risk and Reliability

Downloaded from pio.sagepub.com at Gazi University on May 3, 2015
280 L M Quiroga and E Schnieder

Table 2 Results of the KS test for bn 0.45

b
b (adjusted)
n N da dmax da/dmax 0.4

1 112 0.0773 0.128 60.1 0.35

2 190 0.0904 0.0986 91.6
3 177 0.0755 0.102 73.8
4 137 0.0781 0.116 67.2 0.3
5 96 0.0891 0.138 64.1
6 76 0.143 0.156 91.8 0.25
7 51 0.135 0.190 71.0
8 31 0.104 0.244 42.6 0.2
9 20 0.137 0.304 45.3
10 13 0.157 0.377 41.6
0.15

0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
on the measurements database are presented. Accumulated tamping interventions
Figure 5 shows the estimated mean values and var-
Fig. 6 Estimated and fitted mean values of bn; error
iance of NLinitn, and the fitted mean values (dotted bars represent the variance
curve). Additionally, the amplitudes of the bars rep-
resent the estimated variances. In the same fashion,
Fig. 6 shows estimated and fitted mean values and 0.08
σNLinit
estimated variances for the parameters bn. Figures 7 σNLinit (adjusted)
0.07
and 8 show the variances (they are also shown in
Figs 5 and 6 as bar amplitudes) and the curves fit- 0.06
ting them. For the function fitting procedures, the
0.05
estimations of NLinitn and bn are discarded for n .
10 because there are only very few sectors in the 0.04
measurements database with more than ten tamp- 0.03
ing interventions, so they are not statistically
significant. 0.02

On the one hand, the mean value of NLinit(n) 0.01

seems to converge to a certain value around 0.6
0
after the fifth tamping intervention, growing slowly 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
thereafter. This coincides with the results achieved Accumulated tamping interventions
in reference [11], where the accelerated growth of
NLinit after the first five tampings is attributed to a Fig. 7 Estimated and fitted variance values of NLinitn
settling period after track renewal. The small slope
after the fifth intervention means that even after
after an intervention is still very good. On the other
more than ten interventions the value of NL just
hand, the mean value of b(n) seems to diverge as n
grows. This means that after each intervention, the
growth rate of NL (i.e. the quality loss rate) tends to
0.65
NLinit
NLinit (adjusted)
grow significantly, leading ultimately to the end of
0.6 the ballast life cycle. Also the variances of NLinit(n)
0.55
and b(n) tend to grow rapidly with the number of
interventions, this meaning that the stochastic char-
Long. levelling

0.5 acteristics of the process tend to be more significant

0.45 after each intervention; that is, the greater n is, the
more difficult it is to predict the values of NLinitn
0.4
and the growth rate bn.
0.35 Considering this, for fitting NLinit(n) it is neces-
0.3
sary to use a function of the form

0.25
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 a2be2un (19)
Accumulated tamping interventions

Fig. 5 Estimated and fitted mean values of NLinitn; and for fitting b(n) and the variances a function of
error bars represent the variance the form

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part O: J. Risk and Reliability

Downloaded from pio.sagepub.com at Gazi University on May 3, 2015
 Monte Carlo simulation of railway track geometry deterioration and restoration 281

0.045 0.8
σb NL
0.04 σb (adjusted) Tampings
0.7
0.035

0.03 0.6

Long. levelling
0.025
0.5
0.02
0.4
0.015

0.01 0.3

0.005
0.2
0 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Time [Years]
Accumulated tamping interventions
Fig. 9 Deterministic simulation with intervention
Fig. 8 Estimated and fitted variance values of bn threshold set to 0.7

a + (bn)u
(20)
Thus applying once again the previously mentioned
error minimization technique values are found for
the parameters a, b, and u, and achieve the
dotted curves shown in Figs 5 to 8, as well as an
estimation of the measurement noise. Having calcu-
lated these four functions, it is possible to perform
simulations.
4.4 Process realizations
In this section some process realizations basing on
the data identification of section 4.3 are presented
and analysed. In order to get a glimpse of what a typi-
cal process would look like, Fig. 9 shows the achieved
simulation when setting all variances and the noise to
0; that is, shutting down the whole stochastic charac-
teristics of the process, and setting the degradation
limit to 0.9. This process realization can be considered
as a kind of mean of all process realizations available
in the database used to tune the simulator.
A parameter with significant influence on the
ageing speed of the track geometry is the maximal
travelling speed v. In reference [4] the value of av
on the high-speed line Madrid–Seville is 1.27.
If v1 = 300 km/h and v0 = 250 km/h then, using
and after that the curve with v = 300 km/h grows
always faster. This means that to keep NL under a
given threshold, with v = 300 km/h interventions will
be necessary more often than at v = 250 km/h.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented a method for modelling
and simulation of the track geometry ageing and
restoration process. It models both the exponential
growth constant and the value of NL after tamping
interventions as log-normally distributed variables
which are dependant on the number n of accumu-
lated tamping interventions. These dependencies
become evident in the case study in section 4,
where it is verified that the exponential growth con-
stant and the value of NL achieved after a tamping
intervention tend to rise with the number of accu-
mulated tamping interventions. This leads ulti-
mately to the end of the track life cycle and the
need for track renewal. Since the model is suitable
NL(t|ν=250)
1.2 NL(t|ν=300)
Tampings
1
Long. levelling

equation (13), equation (21) can be obtained: 0.8

0.6
NL(tjv = 300) = (NL(tjv = 250)2NL
 
300 1:27 (21) 0.4
(t = tn jv = 250)) + NL(t = tn jv = 250)
250
0.2

Figure 10 shows a process realization with travelling 0

speeds 250 and 300 km/h. The stochastic nature of 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Time [Years]
both the value after tampings NLinit and the degrada-
tion speed can be here observed. At the time points Fig. 10 Process realization with travelling speeds 250
where interventions take place both curves converge, and 300 km/h

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part O: J. Risk and Reliability

Downloaded from pio.sagepub.com at Gazi University on May 3, 2015
282
for the simulation of the whole life cycle of the
track, the authors believe that it can be regarded as
a very useful tool to evaluate potential benefits of
modifications on the track maintenance strategy.
The approach hereby presented is intended to be
used by the tamping scheduling optimization system
under development at the Institute for Traffic Safety
and Automation Technologies of the TU Braunschweig
in cooperation with the SNCF. In this context, process
simulation would be useful to assess the sensibility of
the maintenance process to the stochastic characteris-
tics of the degradation and restoration process.
The simulation method is intended to be applied
on complete high-speed lines. Reference [14] shows
that the degradation behaviour along a complete
line is not homogeneous. Hence, in order to simu-
late complete lines, it would be necessary to divide
each of them into clusters of homogeneous sectors.
This would lead to an increased simulation verisimi-
litude, and enhance the feasibility of an integral
optimization of the maintenance process on the
complete line. This has special relevance consider-
ing that in most real cases the same human and
technical resources are deployed for the mainte-
nance of a whole line.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to express their gratitude to
Marc Antoni, Chief of the Cellule Emergence et
Prospective of the SNCF Direction de l’Infrastructure,
for taking the initiative and providing all necessary
information and expertise, and to the anonymous
referees for helping to improve the paper with their
sound reviews.
FUNDING
This work was supported by the German Academic
Exchange Service, grant number A/08/74683.
Ó IMechE 2011
REFERENCES
1 Meier-Hirmer, C. Modèles et techniques probabil-
istes pour l’optimisation des stratégies de mainte-
nance. Application au domaine ferroviaire. PhD
Thesis, Université de Marne-la-Vallée, 2007.
2 Esveld, C. Modern railway track, 2001 (MRT Pro-
ductions, Zaltbommel).
3 Quiroga, L. and Schnieder, E. A heuristic approach
to railway track maintenance scheduling. In Com-
puters in railways XII (Eds B. Ning and C. Brebia),
2010, pp. 687–699 (WIT Press, Southampton).
4 Ubalde, L., López Pita, A., Teixeira, P.,
Bachiller, A., and Gallego, I. Track deterioration in
Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part O: J. Risk and Reliability
Downloaded from pio.sagepub.com at Gazi University on May 3, 2015
L M Quiroga and E Schnieder
high-speed railways: influence of stochastic para-
meters. In Proceedings of the 8th International
Conference on Railway engineering, University of
Westminster, London, 2005, CD-ROM.
5 Jovanovic, S. Railway track quality assessment and
related decision making. Syst. Man Cybernet., 2004,
6, 5038–5043.
6 Veit, P. Track Quality – Luxury or Necessity? Rail-
way Technical Review Special: Maintenance and
Renewal, July 2007, pp. 8–12.
7 UIC IDTEG. Best practice guide for optimum track
geometry durability, 2008 (UIC Railway Technical
Publications).
8 Chang, H., Liu, R., and Li, Q. A multi-stage linear
prediction model for the irregularity of the longitu-
dinal level over unit railway sections. In Computers
in railways XII (Eds B. Ning and C. Brebia), 2010,
pp. 641–650 (WIT Press, Southampton).
9 Lichtberger, B. Das System Gleis und seine Instand-
haltung. Eisenbahningenieur, 2007, 58(1), 10–19.
10 Quiroga, L. and Schnieder, E. Modelling high speed
railroad geometry ageing as a discrete-continuous
process. In Proceedings of the International Confer-
ence on Stochastic modeling techniques and data
analysis (SMTDA), 2010. CD-ROM.
11 Antoni, M. Degradation laws of railway ballasted
track. Estimation of the need of maintenance. In Pro-
ceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Accel-
erated life testing, Clermont-Ferrand, France, 2010.
12 Lyngby, N., Hokstad, P., and Vatn, J. RAMS man-
agement of railway tracks. In Handbook of per-
formability engineering, 2008, pp. 1123–1145
(Springer, Berlin).
13 Markov, A. Extension of the limit theorems of
probability theory to a sum of variables connected
in a chain. In Dynamic probabilistic systems, I:
Markov chains (Ed. R. Howard), 1971, pp. 552–576
(Wiley, New York).
14 Meier-Hirmer, C., Senée, A., Riboulet, G.,
Sourget, F., and Roussignol, M., et al. A decision
support system for track maintenance. In Comput-
ers in railways X, 2006, pp. 217–226 (WIT Press,
Southampton).
15 Sato, K. Lévy processes and infinitely divisible distribu-
tions, 1999 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
16 Breiman, L., Friedman, J. H., Olshen, R. A., and
Stone, C. J. Classification and regression trees, 1984
(Chapman and Hall, London).
17 Lichtberger, B. Handbuch gleis, 3rd edn, 2010 (Eur-
ail Press, Hamburg).
18 Lourakis, M. I. A. LEVMAR: Levenberg–Marquardt
nonlinear least squares algorithms in C/C ++
[Open Source library on the Internet], 2004,
available from www.ics.forth.gr/~lourakis/levmar/
[accessed 31 Jan 2010].
19 Marquardt, D. An algorithm for least-squares esti-
mation of nonlinear parameters. SIAM J. Appl.
Math., 1963, 11, 431–441.
20 Stuart, A., Ord, K., and Arnold, S. Kendall’s
advanced theory of statistics, 2A: Classical inference
and the linear model, 6th edition, 1998 (Hodder
Arnold, London).