Lasting Infrastructure Cost Benchmarking - 20 Years of Benchmarking (1996-2015)

Dear Reader,

The UIC team is pleased to provide you with a document that completes 20 years of benchmarking done by the LICB team since 1996. This LICB study is the result of a longterm commitment to the collection, analysis, computing and permanent improvement of data on infrastructure maintenance and renewal to permanently help railway asset managers to assess their rail performance and future strategy, both at national and international level.

The Lasting Infrastructure Cost Benchmarking project was designed to identify the cost level of all the participating railways, to draw conclusions for each individual railway and to highlight opportunities for improvement. The study aims to link asset condition, quality and reliability with lifecycle costs.

The LICB study is based on a few important Key Performance Indicators to benchmark the cost of infrastructure in 20 different countries over the last 20 years.

During this 20-year period, improvements such as methodology, online databases or new “Smart KPI’s” were introduced, to provide valuable continuous comparison and analysis.

Today, LICB can answer the two key questions for European infrastructure managers: how much is spent on maintenance and renewals per year in comparison to other countries, and how do these spending levels change over time?

LICB outputs are also used by the participants themselves to specify key indicators in performance and funding contracts with government, or to provide continuous monitoring and support for long-term renewals planning.

They can also provide input for other benchmarking methods such as econometric studies and can be used for in-depth root cause analysis.

With special thanks to UIC members for their contribution, in particular the UIC LICB working group, which has had a larger composition than those currently named.

Also, we have asked former key people involved in this benchmarking to give their opinion on the LICB.

Teodor Gradinariu, Project Manager, Senior Technical Advisor, Railway Systems Department