Rail track costs management for efficient railway charges

Abstract

A part of track maintenance costs is directly related to train traffic, and therefore they are marginal costs in the short term. Track renewal costs over a longer period of time also increase with traffic, so they could be considered long-term marginal costs. Many different problems can arise when applying maintenance and renewal costs to railway undertakings. With regard to the costs as such, problems arise with their magnitude, the availability and quality of data, and the service life of maintenance and renewal operations. With regard to transferring costs, problems are related to cost recovery, the relationship between track charges and the costs they intend to recover, and the level of the service the infrastructure manager gives the railway operator. A system based on a differentiated approach to maintenance cost and renewal cost depreciation is proposed as a tool for track cost processing. Cost planning and the subsequent levying the costs on railway undertakings are both based on a single concept: the theoretical traffic load. Track usage charges that promote improvements in the activity of infrastructure managers and railway undertakings alike are arrived at by combining the differentiated approach to depreciation, the theoretical traffic load, actual cost data and short-term traffic estimates.