Published: January 2015
Report number: cmr15-005
Project number: TR201409
Author(s): Dr. Dincer Konur, Dr. Suzanna Long, Dr. Ruwen Qin, Dr. Curt Elmore, and Hadi Farhangi
Performing organization: Missouri University of Science and Technology, Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering
Performing organization: Missouri University of Science and Technology, Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering
Abstract: This project models track inspection operations on a
railroad network and discusses how the inspection results can be used to
measure the risk of failure on the tracks. In particular, the inspection times
of the tracks, inspection frequency of the tracks, and times between
consecutive inspections on the same tracks should be considered for scheduling
inspections on the railroad tracks. Furthermore, an inspection plan should
schedule inspections considering the characteristics of different tracks.
Therefore, it is important to schedule track inspections such that the
potential defects are captured as much as possible within minimum times to
increase safety. The project formulates a mathematical optimization problem for
the track inspection planning considering the practical settings of track
inspection operations such as inspection times, inspection frequencies
required, time between consecutive inspections, and importance of distinct
tracks. The two objectives simultaneously captured in this model are
minimization of total inspection times and maximization of the weighted
inspections. An efficient solution method is proposed for solving this model.
The solution method is compared to a scheduling procedure, which can be used in
absence of the findings in this project, on a set of railroad track networks of
different sizes. Based on the comparison, the solution method proposed proves
to find improved inspection schedules regardless of the railroad network size.
A review of the techniques on how to use the inspection results to measure risk
of failure is provided.
