ABSTRACT
Bridges are a neuralgic point for robust rail transport. Increasing rail traffic over the next years, combined with new vehicle developments, will lead to increased loads, especially in bridge transition areas. This requires regular network-wide monitoring to ensure safety standards and is associated with high maintenance costs.
DB Systemtechnik GmbH has successfully deployed the Continuous Track Monitoring (CTM) system, which uses sensors on scheduled trains to monitor indirectly and continuously railway tracks. This paper uses a case study to analyse how this concept can be extended to the monitoring of bridge transitions without modifying the CTM. By comparison with sleeper responses measured directly in the transition area of a tied arch bridge, it is shown that the CTM can reliably capture both the magnitude and time span of recurrent changes in track bedding or ballast deterioration, allowing optimised maintenance planning, thereby reducing costs and increasing reliability.
