Planning and scheduling efficient heavy rail track maintenance through a Decision Rules Model

The most advanced preventive maintenance for railway track relies strongly on inspection and deterioration assessment to provide a given prediction for a maintenance need. Maintenance of track sections is then decided based on long-term planning for an extended track life and on short-term scheduling, combining maintenance tasks, to reduce the number of track possessions. In the particular case of track geometry correction (TGC), which requires moving costly heavy equipment and specialized crews working over-night, a large outlay is involved as well as relevant track possession costs. However, to the best of our knowledge, no research has yet addressed a combined tactical and operational analysis over the determinant logistics issue involved in the problem. In this sense, we propose a method to plan and schedule the heavy maintenance interventions for TGC, where both travel costs and number of workdays spent on track are minimized, ensuring at the same time, an adequate quality for the track.