Implementation of Track Structural Index in Iranian Railway Lines

Annually a vast amount of expenditure is spent on the railway track maintenance. A maintenance management system should be established to organize this maintenance and optimize the costs. Inspection of the track condition is a major part of such system, which ensures the acceptability of the track quality. This study is made by conducting a comprehensive field investigation into the implementation of Track Structural Index (TSI) in Iranian railway lines. TSI is the revised form of the track structure condition index that was made under the direction of these authors for the establishment of the Iranian Railway Track Maintenance Management System (ITMMS). Determining the track condition indexes requires track condition survey so that the various distresses can be identified and quantified. For this purpose the test zone was divided into several track segments. Then, a condition survey program planed carefully and executed to gather distress information. In this paper, the procedures performed for creating track segments, conducting condition surveys, and computing the condition indexes are discussed.

Keywords:

Track structure condition index , Track segment , Condition surveys