Life Cycle Cost Analysis for Turnouts : A comparison between straight and bent turnouts

• Main Author: ARGYRI, VASILIKI-ROUMPINI
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: KTH, Transportplanering 2020
• Subjects: LCC; railways; straight turnouts; bent turnouts; maintenance; failure rate; Engineering and Technology; Teknik och teknologier
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-283198

In a world with unlimited travel options, railways play a key role in transportation. In order to serve the demand at a satisfactory level, it is important that the infrastructure quality remains high and safe. Maintenance is then the most important aspect of railway infrastructure.  This project’s aim is to develop a tool that would evaluate the cost differences and maintenance needs during the life cycle of turnouts, bent with different radii to straight, as a crucial part of the infrastructure, not only technically but also financially. When the cost over a life cycle is provided then design decisions can get more efficient.  Maintenance history of seven years of preventive and corrective maintenance data from databases Bessy and 0felia for single turnouts across the Swedish rail network were studied, analysed and evaluated.  Along with information from interviews with key informants the cost driving parameters were specified. The calculator was developed in Microsoft Excel, giving results for bent turnouts in 4 different radii categories and the respective straight turnouts. An EV-UIC60-760-1:14 turnout was used as a case study for different radii categories and 3 different scenarios were run in order to test the robustness of the tool.  The results showed that bent turnouts have a higher life cycle cost than straight in the order of 1 to 3 mkr depending on the radius, the bigger share of which is usually the preventive maintenance cost, with the specifics to vary between the categories and different scenarios tested. The way maintenance data are registered and classified plays an important role in the analysis.