EOLE – Exceptional Loads and Overloads on Existing Infrastructure – State-of-the-art

The project EOLE aims at assessing the impact of exceptional and overloaded traffics on the fatigue and resistance of structures and providing basis for establishing uniform criteria for the allowance or restriction of these exceptionally loaded traffics in an interoperable way.

Started in October 2017, EOLE is a collaborative project. Placed under the coordination of the Rail System Department of UIC, it brings together an ambitious partnership of Infrastructure experts of different European railway administrations.

This report is intended to summarize the experience and the regulations of the different infrastructure managers in managing traffic of exceptional loads on bridges and other structures, such as earthworks and buried structures. To achieve this a questionnaire has been developed and sent to the UIC members. Answers were received by the following 16 members: Infrabel (Belgium), HŽ Infrastruktura d.o.o. (Croatia), SZDC (Czech Republic), FTIA (Finland), SNCF Réseau (France), DB Netz (Germany), OSE (Greece), MAV (Hungary), RFI (Italy), BaneNOR (Norway), PKP Cargo (Poland), IP (Portugal), CFR (Romania), Adif (Spain), Trafikverket (Sweden) and SBB (Switzerland). Original questionnaire was sent out in 2018, and some answers and this report have been updated in 2024.

The outcome of this analysis, associated with an evaluation of how actual measured traffic conditions might impact the behaviour and serviceability of some structures, will help to point out the potential weaknesses, to possibly revisit the practice of risk assessment and will provide some technical background to setup harmonized rules and requirements for the operational management of heavy and potentially damaging traffics over structures.