The identification of infrastructure critical to regional rail freight operations has many implications. Primarily, such a process informs policy-makers and directs funding to areas of high importance and/or greatest need. For the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), analysts at Cambridge Systematics developed an infrastructure identification process designed to evaluate which key a...

the ability to perform rolling contact fatigue (rcf) experiments in wheel–rail material is provided by a new small–scale test rig, manifesting the actual dynamic behaviour of the railway system. in this paper, a multi-body dynamics (mbd) model is proposed, simulating the vibration behaviour of the prescribed rig. the new testing facility is modelled using a three-dimensional model of the vehicl...

We develop a model to determine the optimal structure and size of a rail car fleet at a chemical company under uncertainty in demand and travel times as well as substitution between rail car types. First, we formulate an MILP model that accounts for the substitution relations between the types and minimizes the total direct rail car cost under given rail car availability constraints and a prede...

In this dissertation, we have developed computer vision methods for measurement of rail gauge, and reliable identification and localization of structural defects in railroad tracks. The rail gauge is the distance between the innermost sides of the two parallel steel rails. We have developed two methods for evaluation of rail gauge. These methods were designed for different hardware setups: the ...

the planning of a rail transit system is a complex process involving the determination of station locations and rail line alignments connecting the stations. There are many requirements and constraints to be considered in the planning process, with complex correlations and interactions, necessitating the application of optimization models in order to realize reliable and cost-effective rail tra...

Using multiple independent networks (also known as rails) is an emerging technique to overcome bandwidth limitations and enhance fault-tolerance of current high-performance clusters. This report presents the limitations and performance of static rail-allocation approaches, where each rail is pre-assigned a direction for communication. An analytical lower bound on the number of networks required...

As state transportation planners seek to build or support sustainable transportation systems in an era of economic challenges, they find few publicly available rail analysis models for stakeholders to examine the environmental impacts, socio-economic effects and costs associated in investing in rail infrastructure. This paper, taken from a University Transportation Center Program (UTCP Region 6...

This report evaluates criticism of rail transit systems. It examines claims that rail transit is ineffective at increasing public transit ridership and improving transportation system performance, that rail transit investments are not cost effective, and that transit is an outdated form of transportation. It finds that critics often misrepresent issues and use biased and inaccurate analysis. Th...

Presented is a 0.9 V rail-to-rail constant gm CMOS amplifier input stage consisting of complementary differential pairs and a gm control circuit. The gm control circuit eliminates the gm dead zone, which occurs in the conventional rail-to-rail amplifier with ultra-low supply voltages. The proposed amplifier input stage has a constant gm that varies by +2.3% for rail-to-rail input common-mode le...

Preventing broken-rail-caused derailments is a high priority for the rail industry and government. The current practice is to periodically inspect rails using non-destructive technologies such as ultrasonic rail inspection. Determining the optimal inspection frequency is a critical decision in railway infrastructure management. The objective of this paper is to develop an analytical framework t...