Markov-based model for the prediction of railway track irregularities

Irregularities in railway tracks are a key factor influencing the safety of trains. In this paper, rail track is considered to consist of consecutive track maintenance units whose individual defect states can be quantified in terms of a track quality index. A Markov stochastic process approach is used to evaluate the deterioration of a maintenance unit. A hazard model is formulated using the heterogeneity of the maintenance units, and a matrix of the Markov transition probabilities is constructed. The parameters of the developed models are estimated via a maximum log-likelihood function. The prediction model is validated with track irregularity data measured using track geometry cars.