Estimation of the life cycle cost of the upper railway track structure

Abstract

The length of tracks with excess tonnage was 14% in the territory of the Russian Federation in 2007, and it reached 20% by 2017. Removal of these restrictions is possible due to modernization of the upper railway track structure (URTS) with increasing its durability and lowering of the life cycle cost (LCC). The purpose of the study is building the LCC estimation model. This model includes the structure of the URTS, the categories and elements of the costs for its maintenance, identification (estimation) of costs, algorithms for their calculation. The average annual LCC of 1 km of the URTS includes the cost of reconstruction, maintenance, intermediate repairs, elimination of consequences of road failures and disposal in the form of the return value of old URS elements. The developed methodology was tested on the actual data of one of the sections of the West Siberian Infrastructure Directorate. The analysis of the obtained data made it possible to conclude that the adopted model of calculating the LCC of URTS adequately displays the categories and elements of the costs for maintenance of the railway track, their specific share in the LCC.