Railways Asset Management model based on a probabilistic Life Cycle Cost Analysis Application to the Portuguese Railway Network

The asset management and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) principals perform a vital role in the reduction and optimization of the costs of an infrastructure manager, providing a better decision support technically and financially. It was intended to create an asset management LCC model to rail track superstructure of the Portuguese rail network assembled with the Iberian gauge. This model is able to receive the inputs defined by the user related to the Maintenance and Renewal (M&R) activities and to the characteristics of the track superstructure. As a result, depending on the inputs it performs the scheduling of the individual renewals of the rail, sleepers, ballast and the Switches and Crosses (S&C). When the first three of these renewals accomplish the proximity criteria defined by the user, it is appointed a whole track renewal. Moreover, the model calculates the needs and costs of the M&R operations related with the track superstructure and S&C through the analysis period. Finally, the model combines the deterministic approach with a stochastic approach employing the Monte Carlo simulation in order to handle uncertainty.