One major prerequisite for an effective implementation and innovation process is the enablement and provision of a collaborative environment. A common area for multi-organisational collaboration together with a technology platform, enabling data sharing and Big Data Analytics, has been developed called ‘Testbed Railway’ with a corresponding framework ‘Railway 4.0’. Testbed Railway can be used to strengthen the railway industry's adaptability and competitiveness by developing and providing a testbed for research and innovation in the rail industry, nationally and internationally.

Globally, railway is experiencing a major technology transformation (or paradigm shift), triggered by the enhanced utilisation of digital technology. This technological transformation affects not only the technical systems, i.e. railway infrastructure and rolling stock, but also regulations, organisations, processes,and individuals. Hence, hardware, software, but also liveware (i.e. humans) are affected. Today, the digitalisation of railway is characterised by digital services. There are also a range of challenges, e.g. data acquisition,transformation, modelling, processing, visualisation, safety, security, quality, and information assurance. To deal with these challenges, the railway industry needs to define strategies, which enable a smooth transformation of the existing configuration to a digitalised system. Digital railway requires a holistic change management approach based on system-of-systems thinking and a set of appropriate technologies and methodologies. The railway digitalisation strategy should be based on systematic risk management that address aspects of, e.g., information security, traffic safety and project risk. In addition, managing changes for a digitalised railway effectively and efficiently also requires a framework for aspects such as needs finding, requirement identification, and impact of changes for individual, teams and organisation. In this work a major case studywithin the ePilot, has been performed in context of the operation and maintenance processes of the Swedish railway. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a framework for implementing innovations and driving change in a digitalised railway.

Rail traffic has increased manifold during the last decade. This development and the need for shift transportation from road to rail to decrease CO2 emission, creates a challenge for the railway industry to improve capacity in the network. The challenge is to do more effective inspection and maintenance in less time. An EU project ‘AUTOMAIN’ was initiated to optimize and automate maintenance and inspection activities with introduction of new planning and scheduling tools and methodologies. The project looked into reducing the maintenance possession time by around 40%. The project aim was to; adopt best practices from other industries in maintenance optimization, developing novel track inspection approaches for freight routes. The scope was for in-train measuring and self-inspecting switch, researching and assessing innovations that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of large scale inspection and maintenance processes with a scope on track and switch maintenance, track inspection; developing key technologies that will drive the development of modular infrastructure design, and developing a new maintenance planning and scheduling tool to optimize the maintenance activities, taking account of the benefits brought about by other improvements in this project.The Consortium composition covers the railway maintenance and inspection field like; infrastructure managers, contractors, train operating companies, railway component industry, research organizations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and railway industry related organizations. In this paper, the authors have tried to summarize the methodology and results achieved in this project and how it has achieved the reduced maintenance possession time for higher railway traffic movements.

The measurement and improvement of track quality are key issues in determining both the restoration time and cost of railway maintenance. Applying the optimal tamping strategy helps reduce maintenance costs, making operations more cost effective and leading to increased safety and passenger comfort. In this paper, track geometry data from the iron ore line (Malmbanan) in northern Sweden, which handles both passenger and freight trains, are used to evaluate track geometry maintenance in cold climate. The paper describes Trafikverket’s (Swedish Transport Administration) tamping strategy and evaluates its effectiveness in measuring, reporting, and improving track quality. Finally, it evaluates the performance of the maintenance contractor and discusses the importance of the functional requirements stated in the outsourcing contracts.

An available, reliable and well-maintained railway is the foundation for competition and market growth. Demands on high standardsfor reliable rail transport, tight turnaround times and high utilization of resources (machines, workshops , staff) makes minimumdisturbance in the system to quickly disrupt the entire process of lost capacity, delays and reduced quality to customers as a result.The Swedish railway composed after deregulation, of several different parties, each one with individually objectives and strategy tomaintain their assets and rolling stock. Although some data are railway system common no greater sharing of operation andmaintenance data exists, which creates the risk of sub-optimisation.Luleå Railway Research Center (JVTC) has since 2005 determinedly conducted research in eMaintenance with the aim of usingdifferent types of condition data to develop decision support using preventive measures to prevent disruption of the railway systemin a cost effective manner. eMaintenance aims to perform and control the maintenance with help of condition data and isinterdisciplinary field based on the information and communication technology ( ICT) to ensure that maintenance is carried out inline with both the customer and the supplier's business goals and intrinsic components in all parts of a system's life cycle.eMaintenance concept has developed progressively over the years and now it is acdcepted o be implemented as a pilot project calledePilot119 in the north part of Sweden on track section 119 between Luleå and Boden. ePilot119 delivers a collaboration platform forthe development needs and requirements from various stakeholders to find solutions that enable and transform the Swedishfragmented rail industry to and an integrated system. ePilot 119 will demonstrate the advantages of working with informationtechnology and data in real time to control railway traffic and service. The approach is based on enhanced collaborationmethodology with a framework project and a central team that is unifying for finding smaller sub-projects for transform ePilot119 toa common natural process for sharing maintenance decision support for the railway. The pilot project aims to demonstrate thathigher availability, enhanced capacity and a cost efficient railway operation can be created using the information that is ineMaintenance lab when used in the right way at the. The goal and strategy and the methodology will be to implemented as a naturalapproach to section 119 and then successively implemented in other sections of track in Sweden.

The measurement and improvement of track quality are key issues in determining the time at which railway maintenance must be performed and its cost. Efficient track maintenance ensures optimum allocation of limited maintenance resources which has an enormous effect on maintenance efficiency. Applying an appropriate tamping strategy helps reduce maintenance costs, making operations more cost-effective and leading to increased safety and passenger comfort levels. This paper discusses optimisation of the track geometry inspection interval with a view to minimising the total ballast maintenance costs per unit traffic load. The proposed model considers inspection time, the maintenance-planning horizon time after inspection and takes into account the costs associated with inspection, tamping and risk of accidents due to poor track quality. It draws on track geometry data from the iron ore line (Malmbanan) in northern Sweden, used by both passenger and freight trains, to find the probability distribution of geometry faults.

It is well known that the railway network and infrastructure is sensitive to disturbances caused by climate changes. Hot days can cause rail buckling, thunder storm causes signalling failures, cold can lead to rail breakage, snow and wind can cause disruption of services and train delays. In short climate has considerable impact on the reliability and availability of railway system. The result from the study shows that occurrences and types of failures can be systematically linked and related to prevalent weather conditions, geographical location (near water, up in the mountain) of infrastructures, etc

The measurement and management of railway infrastructure capacity has received increased attention in recent years due to the pressing need to optimally utilized the existing railway infrastructure capacity and as well create more capacity. In a bid to improve the maintenance function and utilization of the existing infrastructure, some of the infrastructure managers (IM) reviewed their approach to outsourcing of maintenance functions, giving larger responsibilities to maintenance agent called contractors. The growing responsibilities of the contractors are however resisted by some IM due to some unresolved doubts. This paper discusses the outcome oriented approach to maintenance outsourcing; performance based railway infrastructure maintenance contracting with its issues and challenges. A framework is described and performance monitoring tool is proposed to enhance Performance Based Railway Infrastructure Maintenance (PBRIM) contracting as a strategy for improving the effectiveness of maintenance function