Modelling the evolution of ballasted railway track geometry by a two-level piecewise model

Accurate prediction and efficient simulation of the evolution of track geometry condition is a prerequisite for planning effective railway track maintenance. In this regard, the degradation and tamping effect should be equipped with proper and efficient probabilistic models. The possible correlation induced by the spatial structure also needs to be taken into account when modelling the track geometry degradation. To address these issues, a two-level piecewise linear model is proposed to model the degradation path. At the first level, the degradation characteristic of each track section is modelled by a piecewise linear model with known break points at the tamping times. At the second level, Autoregressive Moving Average models are used to capture the spatial dependences between the parameters of the regression lines indexed by their locations. To illustrate the model, a comprehensive case study is presented using data from the Main Western Line in Sweden.