A New Technology in Railroad automated data collection

Maintenance management is becoming increasingly important for railway companies in order to safeguard their passengers while improving safety and reducing maintenance costs. One of the main requirements for the maintenance management of railroad is to assess its performance. The best way is to use a quantitative indicator of the rail performance level, so that any changes in this indicator represent the rail condition. Despite significant development of railway, there isn't any comprehensive and systematic approach to evaluate railroad that would be used in maintenance management. Hi-Rail is the most recent technology deployed in several developed countries such as United States. This technology is utilized to automatically collect condition data using tools such as laser, radar, ultra sound, and high resolution cameras. A Hi-Rail vehicle is capable of operating both on rail tracks and a conventional road. This paper reviews the technical specifications of Hi-Rail in terms of its crucial capabilities with regards to collecting data with high accuracy and precision in safe, fast, and consistent manner to be effectively applied in railroad management system. Finally, economic feasibility and superiority of this new technology versus the traditional methods are studied.

Keywords:

data collection , automatically , Hi-Rail