Prevention and Mitigation of Derailment

Monitoring and measuring equipment is playing an increasingly important role in reducing costs and disturbances, increase safety and promote a more environmentally friendly railway.

 

This IRS 70729 is a precursor in promoting international standardisation of the use of monitoring equipment to enhance rail transports. In previous works carried out in the D-Rail project and later on by the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) it is shown that the most cost-efficient way to prevent derailments is to employ detectors of vertical load magnitudes. With such load detectors it was shown to be possible to have an influence on more than 20% of the derailments and about 40% of the costs for derailments. This means that the technical and economic benefits of this IRS are considerable.

 

The aim of this IRS is to harmonise force measurements and alarm limits. This document will serve as an important tool to promote cross-border freight traffic, bearing in mind that 50% of rail freight in Europe is performed across borders. The document will also serve as a tool to improve safety by reducing and mitigating derailments and, in the long term, will contribute to the development of further research and standardisation.