Reliable, effective, and sustainable urban railways: A model for optimal planning and asset management

Urban railways play a critical role in the daily life of citizens. However, extensive deterioration of mostly aged systems complicates the management of this type of infrastructure in coping with increased demand and restricted upgrade and renewal budgets. The main objective of this research is to develop a comprehensive network-level decision-making model for managing urban railway systems to maintain the highest level of performance, reliability, and convenience in the movement of passengers in a metropolitan area. By considering ridership fluctuations and network expansion scenarios, the proposed model integrates the current and expected future usage rates into the decision-making process. The Montreal metro system was considered as a real-world case study. The results indicate that proactive maintenance scheduling can save up to 25% of the cumulative expenditure during a 20-year horizon while improving the overall performance of the system. Comparing the decisions proposed by the model and the government plan for this network presents an opportunity to understand current railway asset management practices. The proposed model is applicable to rail rapid transit (underground and surface), light rail transit, and suburban trains as well as bus rapid transit and guides maintenance, upgrade, and expansion of these systems, targeting improvements in their convenience, reliability, and ridership.