Condition Monitoring Systems in the Railway Industry

In recent years, maintenance strategies have evolved drastically with improvements in technology and the increased interest of utilising real-time data. This has led to an expansion in condition monitoring of systems, structures, vehicles, and machinery. The railway industry is currently investing in condition monitoring technologies in order to achieve lower failure rates and provide a better service. The new technologies that are being utilised within the railway industry are being used to aid the improvement of ride comfort, economy, prevention of derailment, maintenance strategy, structural properties, the prediction of wear and improved safety. The Rail Technical Strategy stated in its 2012 report that the future of railway is a system that will utilise intelligent maintenance and condition monitoring to improve efficiency in the way core engineering tasks are completed [1]. Thus, condition monitoring systems play a crucial role in the maintaining of the railway industry of the future. This paper, therefore sets out to comprehensively review the current state of affairs of the condition monitoring systems used within the railway industry and to outline a plan of further development on the integration of condition-based maintenance.