European Benchmark for Maintenance Practices and Standards of Several Rail Infrastructure Managers for Low Tonnage Freight-only Tracks

Economic profitability is the target for the French incumbent rail operator. This led to low traffic areas getting dropped from the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer français; French National Railway Corporation (SNCF) transportation plan, local rail customers being not happy on covering the operator costs on the one hand, and the infrastructure wear out making the operations more expensive and less reliable on the other hand. Some of these shippers voiced concern about losing their possibility to use rail to sustain their logistics, as they were neglected by the historical company and not considered as short term strategic markets or manageable contracts by the newest railway undertakings. These associations have worked on the characterization of the potential flows that could be aggregated, on the definition of the services, data sharing and other logistics issues. In search for solutions to cut down on infrastructure costs, on the regeneration and maintenance aspects, this weighted heavily on the economic feasibility of such organizations. The present study is conducted by two technical Departments of the French Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Town and Country Planning for the General Directorate for Infrastructures, Tourism and Sea. The paper will compare maintenance and regeneration practices (stakeholders, referentials, costs, …) among five European countries infrastructure managers (France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and United Kingdom), and ultimately facilitating the emergence of new referentials, of lighter costs. This will be accomplished through different work organizations, intervention types and frequencies, works planning, etc. while ensuring the required safety level with regards to the operations performances users are asking for. It is also hoped to lower costs through the maintenance liability transfer to these private entities, prerogatives to be granted by a law being currently discussed at the Parliament, allowing them to have new stakeholders in the rail public works sector to compete for such contracts. The paper will pay specific attention to get into an appropriate level of details as for the maintenance technics at stake and to put figures on cost elements during the detailed interviews with stakeholders in the different countries the survey will be based on.

• Record URL:
  https://aetransport.org/past-etc-papers/conference-papers-pre-2009/conference-papers-2009
• Corporate Authors:

  Association for European Transport (AET)

  1 Vernon Mews, Vernon Street, West Kensington
  London W14 0RL,    
• Authors:
  • Billet-Legros, P
• Conference:
  • European Transport Conference, 2009
  • Location: Leiden Leeuwenhorst Conference Centre , Netherlands
  • Date: 2009-10-5 to 2009-10-7
• Publication Date: 2009

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Bibliography; Figures; Maps; Photos; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: European Transport Conference, 2009 Proceedings

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Benchmarks; Data sharing; Freight traffic; Freight transportation; Logistics; Maintenance of way; Origin and destination; Railroad traffic; Railroad transportation; Sustainable development
• Identifier Terms: Societe nationale des chemins de fer francais
• Geographic Terms: Europe
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Maintenance and Preservation; Railroads; I60: Maintenance;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01349582
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 10 2011 10:43AM