Lifecycle Cost Analysis for Operations and Maintenance Planning of Railway Bridge Transition

The understanding of the whole-life costs of each component in engineering project could help track or asset manager to decide the optimal maintenance planning for the project. The understanding can help stakeholders to make better choice of track maintenance plans tailored for their local condition. At railway bridge transition (or the interface between plan track and bridge), a track stiffness difference occurs and causes an intense impact force to the rail and vehicle. Many track solutions have been developed over a number of years. However, ballast bonding and embankment treatment are two of the most widely used mitigation methods to reduce the consequences due to their availability, resilience, constructability and maintainability. Currently, the whole-life costs of these methods are not fully understood; therefore, this paper is the first to examine the lifecycle cost and benefits of each mitigation method. Based on the parametric studies, we found that the whole lifecycle costs of maintenance are considerably affected by the economic conditions where discount rate and consumer price index incremental rate are different. The recommendation translates novel insights considering systems thinking approach and socio-technical complexity into practice, and will benefit the railway industry significantly over the long term, enhancing economic sustainability.