Inspection Method of Track Facilities Using Image Analysis of Images Taken from Front of Trains

Abstract

Appropriate maintenance of tracks is vital for the safe operation of railways. Properly managing track facilities is necessary to prevent buckling of rails. Changes in society are creating a shortage of workers, a decrease in skilled engineers, a decrease in passenger income, and an increase in the need to develop lowcost inspection methods which do not require experience. Therefore, we have developed a method using only inexpensive camcorders, which can extract information from images to detect joint gaps, wooden sleeper deterioration and ballast shape, and estimate the kilometer point of these images to locate the installations in question. This paper describes the outline of the method and its application results.