Measurements of the Vertical Displacements of a Railway Bridge Using TLS Technology in the Context of the Upgrade of the Polish Railway Transport

The railway system in Poland is undergoing technological transformation. The development of the Polish railway system concerns not only high-speed trains but also infrastructure. The steel bridge is the most popular type of railway bridge in Poland. Most of them were built in the 1950s and 1960s. According to the recommendations in place in Western Europe, such railway bridges should be reviewed in terms of their fitness for use with modern high-speed trains. The modern technological revolution affects not only the railway, but also developments in displacement and deformation measurement techniques. New technologies provide more objective measurement results and accelerate results processing. They also facilitate the non-contact measurement of bridge structure stability. The authors investigated the vertical displacement of an old steel railway bridge in three different, specific case studies of terrestrial laser scanning data application. Then, the results of 3D data were compared with traditional land surveying results. The scientific results led to a conclusion that a strictly determined methodology of the measurement and analysis of a terrestrial laser scanner results supported by traditional land surveying techniques facilitates the determination of the vertical displacement of bridges with acceptable accuracy.