Optimierte Einheitskosten: Sperrpausendauer und Baustellenlänge / Optimised unit coats: duration of track closure and work site length

Continuously rising numbers of trains on already high loaded shared corridors in Austria lead to permanently shortened track closures. In theses limited time windows only short sections can be maintained and reinvested. Decreased outputs of maintenance shifts and short reinvested lengths conclude in increasing unit costs. Transposing works into night and weekend shifts in order not to disturb operation bumps up prices additionally. It is possible to monetize the needs of operation, respectively of the train operation companies, by calculating the costs of operational hindrances. These costs can then be opposed to the work site costs. By this means optimised durations of track closures ― and therefore also work site lengths ― can be identified, specified for different track works and different railway lines. In the common project of all companies of the ÖBB concern it was figured out that in present practice almost all track closures are dimensioned too short. Or to say it in other words, the follow-up costs of train operation due to disturbed schedules are overrated by far. It must be the common goal to again provide long enough track closures/work site lengths in order to guarantee a maximum of continuity in track on one hand and the least overall cost on the other one.