In the railway sector, rolling stock and infrastructure must be maintained in perfect condition to ensure reliable and safe operation for passengers. Climate change is affecting the urban and regional infrastructure through sea level rise, water accumulations, river flooding, and other increased-frequency extreme natural situations (heavy rains or snows) which pose a challenge to maintenance. In this paper, the use of artificial intelligence based on predictive maintenance implementation is proposed for the early detection of degraded conditions of a bridge due to extreme climatic conditions. For this prediction, continuous monitoring is proposed, with the aim of establishing alarm thresholds to detect dangerous situations, so restrictions could be determined to mitigate the risk. However, one of the main challenges for railway infrastructure managers nowadays is the high cost of monitoring large infrastructures. In this work, a methodology for monitoring railway infrastructures to define the optimal number of transductors that are economically viable and the thresholds according to which infrastructure managers can make decisions concerning traffic safety is proposed. The methodology consists of three phases that use the application of machine learning (Random Forest) and artificial cognitive systems (LSTM recurrent neural networks).

Did you know that implementing CBTC could increase the capacity and efficiency of Ecuador’s railway systems? ATP ensures safety through train detection, separation, and interlocking control. On the other hand, CBTC systems that support various degrees of automation offer several advantages in reliability, capacity, energy efficiency and scalability compared to ATP which will have a limit to improve line operation. Using the Binary Decision Diagrams (BDD) method to contrast the main differences, this research demonstrates that CBTC outperforms ATP in terms of reliability (12.85%), safety (10.5%), capacity (2.8%), maintenance (1.66%), and costs (4.5%). Simulation data obtained in this analysis indicate that transitioning from ATP to CBTC could improve capacity by optimizing headway in 30 seconds less than the theoretical value as shown in the case of study, and enhances traffic management by giving the posibility to add 6 more trains to the line. This analysis concludes that adopting CBTC technology in the studied case of Ecuador could be a strategic and useful investment with substantial long-term benefits in operational efficiency, safety, and reliability.

The commitment to the environment and climate change finds in rail transport lines a stimulus in the necessary social transformation. As an example, the 2030 Agenda of the European Union establishes clear objectives that are translated into courageous mobility plans and a commitment to research in the railway sector through the current Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking and the commitment to Horizon Europe as Europe's Rail, thereby a promising future is predicted for this sector. The energy technology in the railroad is no stranger to these plans. Challenges for improving efficiency, quality and use of energy in guided transport systems are the challenges facing the present and future railway. To achieve a greater acceleration in the technological proposals that lead to a more rational, economic, and systematic use, it is essential to use computational modeling tools based on mathematical models that allow us to understand the behavior of the railway system operation in a reliable and economical term. Thus, the modeling and simulation tools allow the calculation of the technical characteristics of the electrification system to adapt to the operational plans and the demand for services in the life cycle of the railway system.

Electrification systems in the railway field have evolved over time, adapting to the new needs that have arisen as technology advanced. The applicable standards seem to leave the systems in which the overhead contact rail is implemented so far in the background, resulting in references to it that are clearly insufficient, even in the most recent revisions of technical requirements. Simulation tools allow a path for the development of studies related to the contact dynamics between pantograph and contact line, focused mainly on improving the exploitation capacities while guaranteeing a correct quality in the process of the current collection. This work contains a procedure for generating a simulation tool. The results are mainly focused on the rigid electrification system and represent a broad knowledge base to introduce a multitude of challenges when it comes to improving the capacity of these railway facilities under operational conditions, to improve the strategies of maintenance and to calculate the life cycle. It can also be verified that the standards applicable to this environment makes possible to clearly identify the fields on which research efforts can be focused, so that a common framework can be established for all the agents involved from the design to the operational phase. This work has been produced under development of UIC-IRS 70,020.