| | Despite the fact that Maintenance & Renewal (M&R) of infrastructure
represents the largest constitutive part of infrastructure life cycle costs, most
governments and railways in the West Balkans (WB) region, already for decades, most
attention directs towards infrastructure (re)construction, while M&R is largely
neglected. One of the key reasons is the fact that infrastructure maintenance represents a
very long process, lasting many decades, which is too long (and thus also uninteresting)
from the viewpoint of the key stakeholders, be they (at) relevant banks which finance
infrastructure activities, or railways which conduct them, or politicians that decide upon
them. For that reason, these stakeholders find (re)construction projects much more
attractive, as they are shorter (in time), yet financially intensive, which makes them
possible to be “wrapped up” within their “terms”, i.e. the time-frame corresponding to
the stakeholders‟ holding of respective functions/positions. However, all these activities,
including M&R, are eventually paid by all the citizens, who also utilize that
infrastructure, and who thus should find it in their best inte rest that this infrastructure is
kept in the optimal condition, i.e. that it is properly managed, or in other words –
maintained. On the other hand, to manage M&R in an optimal manner, key and keen
attention must be addressed to the dynamic forces acting at the vehicle/track (V/T), i.e.
wheel/rail (W/R) interface, as they represent the key trigger and generator of the entire
deterioration process of all Track Components (TC). For that reason, in the sense of
appropriate assessment of TC condition and definition of the optimal regime of
consequential M&R activities, it is of crucial importance to be able to measure (directly,
or at least indirectly) the V/T dynamic forces, which are, on the other hand, a direct
consequence of the track and rail geometry, but at the same time, their core generator.
In that sense, Vehicle/Track Interaction Monitor (V/TIM) represents one of the latest generation systems aimed at the measurement of TC quality, which, by the use of
accelerometers, measures the dynamic vehicle/track interaction. This article explains the
importance of M&R activities, influence of dynamic forces onto TC deterioration, as
well as a possibility of their measurements and use of the measured data for the M&R
optimization. |
