Development of an Integrated Monitoring System for Railway Infrastructure Using RFID Technology as a Key Enabler

It is incredibly difficult to know precisely the position of a train relative to a piece of rail infrastructure (such as a switch/crossing (S&C)), which creates a challenge for engineers wanting to monitor critical points, such as crossing noses that are prone to wear-related failure. In this paper, two condition monitoring techniques for track assets are discussed, and an RFID subsystem, along with data communication and database, for accurate relative positioning of trains is described. The goal is to synchronise the monitoring data of a railway track asset (crossing nose), as recorded by two separate monitoring systems: one on the track and the second on the vehicle. The proposed solution matches the recorded data with the crossing-nose position accurately by scanning the asset ID using a radio frequency identification technology (RFID) installed on the train and the track. In the future, it is anticipated that this synchornised data can be used by the industry. For example, Network Rail could include this in the databases where maintenance history assets (such as S&C) are stored in order to better understand the wear of components and to facilitate condition-based maintenance and inspection.