2024 Volume 28 Issue 1 Pages 128-135
Improving the efficiency of maintenance is essential to realizing sustainable railways; however, there has been little progress in organizing and sharing existing work across the division, which is essential for introducing effective digital technology. Through joint research with the Railway Technical Research Institute, Shikoku Railway Company is conducting a survey of existing maintenance works across all relating divisions, and is proceeding with sharing and organizing the results. This research focuses on investigating the current status of the track maintenance division, and the survey results show as follows: More than 40% of the inspection human resources are required for walking patrols, that there is a tendency to lack the human resources required for maintaining track conditions such as tamping. The repair works to be conducted simultaneously with walking patrols should be considered when replacing with digital technology. The authors also presented a policy for efficiency maintenance considering the other division results, and then presented a vision for the use of specific digital technologies to achieve this goal.
