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Construction project procurement
Published in Rick Best, Jim Meikle, Describing Construction, 2023
The selection criteria included: Capability and capacity to complete the full scope of worksProposed approach to each projectAffinity for project alliance cultureRelationship management capabilities. In Australia, alliancing is increasingly popular and successful and another example is the recently completed Level Crossing Alliance in Melbourne. Taking traffic from at grade to underneath or over level crossings was an approach to improving road safety, ensuring that trains and motor vehicles are separated so that incidents or accidents cannot occur at crossings. An alliance was set up as it was recognised that such a large-scale venture involving hundreds of locations required community and stakeholder management as well as continuous refinement of techniques and technologies used. Learnings from one project were carried over on to the next project and all of the participants were encouraged to learn from this. Achieving such objectives does come with a cost, and so a need was identified to employ alliance managers to keep the various parties actively involved in this particular type of program of projects.
Application of Risk Analysis Methods for Railway Level Crossing Problems
Published in Qamar Mahboob, Enrico Zio, Handbook of RAMS in Railway Systems, 2018
Level crossings are intersections where roads or paths cross a railway line at the same level. They pose special hazard points, as this is where two transport systems with fundamentally different properties meet.
Systems thinking approach for improving maintenance management of discrete rail assets: a review and future perspectives
Published in Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 2023
Yue Shang, Maria Nogal, Haoyu Wang, A. R. M. (Rogier) Wolfert
From a macro perspective, it was found that the mainstream in existing railway geometry data analytics focuses on the degradation of open tracks while neglecting the localised degradation features in the point assets, which is reflected in the selection of TQI and maintenance type:TQI: the intervention planning is mostly supported by TQI-based trend analysis, where the standard deviation of longitudinal level (in wavelength 3–25 m) over a 200-m track segment is a decisive factor. The aggregate TQI however may not capture the localised degradation feature or highlight the higher degradation rates in the point assets as these assets normally extend up to a few metres or tens of metres. Practically, the inspection on these point assets especially the level crossings is often made by regular manual checks (Shang et al., 2019). There is a need to convert the track geometry data to specific track features at point assets to inform local attention.Maintenance type: the TQI-based trend analysis is generally used for tamping optimisation, mostly coupled with a condition recovery model and replacement concern. Tamping is effective in packing the ballast layer but may not help correct the track geometry defects and hanging sleepers at approaches to the point assets, where the root cause mostly lies in the substructure level. Upgrading the ballast or subgrade layer should be considered as an alternative.
A new method for evaluating driver behavior and interventions for passive railway level crossings with pneumatic tubes
Published in Journal of Transportation Safety & Security, 2019
Grégoire S. Larue, Christian Wullems
Level crossings are divided into two types: active level crossings with flashing lights and passive level crossings controlling traffic solely with stop and give-way signs. Active crossings are the safer option but currently represent only 20% of all Australian crossings (Railway Industry Safety and Standards Board, 2009). For this reason, no new railway crossings are added to the rail network in Australia, and the rail industry has programs to upgrade passive crossings to active ones. However, the number of crossings treated is limited. There are a number of factors that reduce the feasibility of installing active protection at all railway level crossings: these collisions occur with a relatively low frequency, at random locations, and in remote locations with low traffic. Upgrading all crossings would be a disproportionate cost compared to the benefits.