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The impacts of weather on railway infrastructure in Sweden

Ochsner, Michelle LU ; Fisher, Rachel and Palmqvist, Carl-William LU orcid (2024) In Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure
Abstract
In this paper, we estimate the vulnerability of railway infrastructure, switches, signals, tracks, and catenaries to different weather conditions, temperature, precipitation, snow depth, and wind speed across the entire Swedish railway network between 2006-2020. Using a method to quantify the fault rate we establish thresholds that can be useful for identifying areas of concern for operations. Results reveal that high or low temperatures have a noticeable impact on the fault rates for switches, tracks, and catenaries. High levels of precipitation are associated with higher fault rates across tracks and catenaries. Snow depth has an influence on fault rates for switches and tracks, and high wind speeds are associated with higher fault rates... (More)
In this paper, we estimate the vulnerability of railway infrastructure, switches, signals, tracks, and catenaries to different weather conditions, temperature, precipitation, snow depth, and wind speed across the entire Swedish railway network between 2006-2020. Using a method to quantify the fault rate we establish thresholds that can be useful for identifying areas of concern for operations. Results reveal that high or low temperatures have a noticeable impact on the fault rates for switches, tracks, and catenaries. High levels of precipitation are associated with higher fault rates across tracks and catenaries. Snow depth has an influence on fault rates for switches and tracks, and high wind speeds are associated with higher fault rates for tracks and catenaries. Finally, signals were found to be the most resilient asset. When comparing two dominant climate zones, notable differences were only found for track asset vulnerability. (Less)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
epub
subject
in
Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure
publisher
Taylor & Francis
external identifiers
  • scopus:85190428082
ISSN
2378-9689
DOI
10.1080/23789689.2024.2340371
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
d7a45ecc-241c-4992-be9f-377a09ab310b
date added to LUP
2024-04-11 10:27:31
date last changed
2024-04-29 10:39:31
@article{d7a45ecc-241c-4992-be9f-377a09ab310b,
  abstract     = {{In this paper, we estimate the vulnerability of railway infrastructure, switches, signals, tracks, and catenaries to different weather conditions, temperature, precipitation, snow depth, and wind speed across the entire Swedish railway network between 2006-2020. Using a method to quantify the fault rate we establish thresholds that can be useful for identifying areas of concern for operations. Results reveal that high or low temperatures have a noticeable impact on the fault rates for switches, tracks, and catenaries. High levels of precipitation are associated with higher fault rates across tracks and catenaries. Snow depth has an influence on fault rates for switches and tracks, and high wind speeds are associated with higher fault rates for tracks and catenaries. Finally, signals were found to be the most resilient asset. When comparing two dominant climate zones, notable differences were only found for track asset vulnerability.}},
  author       = {{Ochsner, Michelle and Fisher, Rachel and Palmqvist, Carl-William}},
  issn         = {{2378-9689}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Taylor & Francis}},
  series       = {{Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure}},
  title        = {{The impacts of weather on railway infrastructure in Sweden}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23789689.2024.2340371}},
  doi          = {{10.1080/23789689.2024.2340371}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}