From Analysis of Information Needs towards an Information Model of Railway Infrastructure

Railway is a tightly coupled network, where the operations are directly effected by the condition of rail infrastructure. With the advancement of ICT, a railway network exploit various computerized systems for efficient railway monitoring, maintenance and operations. However, these systems suffer from number of limitations, mainly, the data related to each asset type (e.g. Track, Bridge, etc) are stored in separate database management system. Such scattered and isolated nature of data present the island of information, while making it impossible to perform the sound decision analysis. In this paper, we propose a nework wide information model of railway infrastructure that structure the railway object, specify their properties and identify their inter-relationships. The presented information model supports the railway monitoring, maintenance and operations by providing the layout of railway infrastructure. Structuring data in the form of railway assets, railway risk assessment, railway load management, railway maintenance, and railway failure will provide a solid base to railway stakeholders, e.g. infrastructure managers, to take informed decisions based on data properties.