Taking a look at the first phase of an AM development in respect to the railway
infrastructure, it can be seen that the first important thing about providing detailed asset
information is to find out what the assets are and where they are located. Although it sounds
really basic, this has proven to be not an easy task on many railways, because asset
documentation was usually paper based, rather old, not regularly updated, inconsistent, and
consequently unreliable. The railway infrastructures on many of the railways in the world are
more than hundred years old; and during these hundred years there have been numerous
reconstructions and changes performed both in track layouts and track structures along with
other infrastructure elements. Unfortunately, these changes, especially those performed
further in the past, most often escaped being recorded or were poorly documented. Also,
assets were usually referred to using mileposts, which were often proven to be wrong or
imprecise. These things, along with the retiring of the most experienced engineers, who were
perhaps the only ones left who knew something about those changes, necessitated the
creation of a consistent and accurate infrastructure location and data collection system. This
system had as its aim not only the establishment of the accurate infrastructure location but
also the capturing of the existing knowledge and information present among the most
experienced engineers while it was still available.
Railway AMS should include and combine all kinds of specialised monitoring, data
collection, and decision support systems. This should be the case for track, but also for all
other railway infrastructure elements like bridges, switches and crossings, overhead lines,
level crossings, tunnels, culverts, etc. AMS should also incorporate issues like environmental
and hazard management and emergency response systems. Once integrated, an AMS should
serve the needs of all the parties that are in anyway connected to the railway system, such as
the infrastructure owners, railway contracting or traffic operating companies, or any other.
They all should make use of the AMS, extract the data needed for their everyday or long-term
strategic purposes, and also feed the appropriate data back to the system
− Collect feedback information and make adjustments as needed