LCC-based approach for design and requirement specification for railway track system

Life cycle cost (LCC) analysis is an important tool for effective infrastructure management. It is an essential decision support methodology for selection, design, development, construction, maintenance and renewal of railway infrastructure system. Effective implementation of LCC analysis will assure cost-effective operation of railways from both investment and life-cycle perspectives. A major setback in the successful implementation of LCC analysis by infrastructure managers is the availability of relevant, reliable, and structured data. Different cost estimation methods and prediction models have been developed to deal with this challenge. However, there is a need to include condition degradation models as an integral part of LCC model to account for possible changes in the model variables. This article presents an approach for integrating degradation models with LCC model to study the impact of change in design speed on key decision criteria such as track possession time, service life of track system, and LCC. The methodology is applied to an ongoing railway investment project in Sweden to investigate and quantify the impact of design speed change from 250 to 320 km/h. The results of the studied degradation models show that the intended change in speed corresponds to correction factor values between 0.79 and 0.96. Using this correction factor to compensate for changes in design speed, the service life of ballasted track system is estimated to decrease by an average of 15%. Further, the expected value of LCC for the route under consideration will increase by 30%. The outcome of this study will be used to support the design and requirement specification of railway track system for the project under consideration.