Fundamentals of railroad technology and interactions between track and vehicles, network development and infrastructure planning, planning of rail infrastructure, planning and design of railway stations, construction and dimensioning of tracks, approval and beginning service on complex infrastructure facilities, special issues of maintenance.
Learning objective
Teaches the basic principles of public transport network and topology design, geometrical design, dimensioning and construction as well as the maintenance of rail infrastructures. Teaches students to recognize the interactions between the infrastructure design and the production processes. Provides the background for Masters degree study.
Content
(1) Fundamentals: Infrastructures of public transport systems; interaction between track and vehicles; passengers and goods as infrastructure users; management and financing of networks; railway standards and normes. (2) Infrastructure planning: Planning processes and decision levels in network development and infrastructure planning, planning of railway tracks and rail topologies; planning of the passenger parts of stations. (3) Infrastructure design: Fundamentals of the layout of a line; track geometry; switchs and crossings; design of station platforms. (4) Construction of railway infrastructures: Assembly and evolution of the railway track; elements of the railway track; dimensioning of the track; track stability. (5) Approval and beginning service on complex infrastructure facilities: Definitions and limitations; fundamentals of the legal situation; test and approval processes; processes of putting railway systems into operation. (6) Maintenance of railway infrastructures: Fundamentals of infrastructure maintenance; kinds of depreviations; supervision methods; steps of infrastructure maintenance; estimation of maintenance need; methods to minimize maintenance costs.
Lecture notes
Course notes will be provided in German. Slides are made available some days before each lecture.
Literature
References to technical literature will be included in the course script. An additional list of literature will be given during the course.
