THE MAINTENANCE PLANNING OF SERBIAN RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE IN ACCORDANCE WITH EUROPEAN STANDARDS University of Belgrade, Faculty of Civil Engineering University of Belgrade, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering Leposava Puzavac, MSc, Zdenka Popović, PhD, Luka Lazarević, MSc, Miloš Ivić, PhD, Milana Kosijer, MSc, EURO – ZEL th International Symposium 8 th – 9 th, June 2011, Žilina, SK

One of the essential preconditions for the integration of the Serbian Railways with those of the European Union is to approximate Serbia’s railway regulations and standards to those of the EU.

European Committee for Standardization (CEN) has created a group of standards EN Railway applications – Track – Track geometry quality which consists of five parts. The objective of creation of this group of standards is defining a unique approach for the evaluation of track geometry quality of various European railway infrastructures. This group of standards is a basis for creation of the railway infrastructure maintenance plan. Out of this group of standards, so far the Institute for Standardization of Serbia has published in Serbia only SRPS EN :2010 Railway applications - Track - Track geometry quality - Part1: Characterization of track geometry.

The current status of harmonization of subordinate Acts for railway infrastructure maintenance in Serbia EU regulations Republic of Serbia regulations

Existing Serbian railway regulations and logistics concerning track inspection, quality evaluation and correction of track geometry are in collision with those of the European Union. One of the significant barriers for harmonization is the expectance of the new Act on railway traffic safety, according to The European Railway Safety Directive (2004/49/EC).

To reduce maintenance costs of the track, the goal is to extend the track service life to achieve greater cost-efficiency. The correction of spot faults is costly. Track quality management is based on the definition of track geometry inspection schedule. Traditionally, track geometry inspection has been performed at fixed time intervals. However, this method does not always result in the optimum system in respect of cost and safety. Unfortunately, Serbian Railways are applying precisely this kind of concept according to technical regulations. The Infrastructure Manager has to define, for each conventional rail line, an interactive maintenance plan. The plan defines types of inspection and testing and their frequency, professional competences of staff, measuring methods and necessary procedures.

The maintenance plan shall contain at least:  a set of limit values,  a statement about the methods, professional competences of staff and personal protective safety equipment necessary to be used,  the rules to be applied for the protection of people working on or near the track,  the means used to check the respect of in-service values, and  the measures taken (speed restriction, repair time) when prescribed values are exceeded. Maintenance plan is related to the following elements:  requirements for equivalent conicity in service,  in service geometry of switches and crossings,  track geometric quality and limits on isolated defects,  platform edge as required by the "People with reduced mobility" TSI,  inspection of tunnels condition as required by the "Safety in Railway Tunnels" TSI, and  professional competences for maintenance staff.

The basis for creation of the maintenance plan is measurement data from the railway network. After the recording run, quality data with further instructions regarding registered defects are uploaded on the intranet network and become available to all the operators.

3. TRACK GEOMETRIC QUALITY LEVELS ACCORDING TO EUROPEAN STANDARDS According to European Standards track geometry quality is defined as assessment of excursions from the mean or designed geometrical characteristics of specified parameters in the vertical and lateral planes which give rise to safety concerns or have a correlation with ride quality. Defining the geometric quality levels can be significant in: optimization of track geometry maintenance works, optimization of vehicle ride quality and dynamic loading of the track, and harmonising vehicle acceptance procedures. Three indicators can describe the track geometric quality: extreme values of isolated defects, standard deviation over a defined length, typically 200 m, and mean value.

Quality levels of the track geometry parameters according to EN Nominal to peak value Nominal to mean value Zero* to peak value Standard deviation IALILALIALILALIALILALIALILAL Track gauge Longitudinal level Alignment Twist

Quality levels of the track geometry parameters according to Serbian Instruction 339 on unique criteria for track condition control Nominal to peak value Zero to peak value ABCABC Track gauge Longitudinal level* Alignment* Cross level Twist According to EN :2003, longitudinal level and alignment present deviation from the “ideal”, i.e. designed rail position in the vertical and horizontal plane. According to the Instruction 339 these parameters are defined according to the mutual position of the rails, i.e. their relative position in the space.

CONCLUSIONS A.The incompatibility of the existing technical regulations in the area of railway infrastructure maintenance in the Republic of Serbia with the EU regulations is obvious. B.For now, the legal barrier is anticoincidence of the existing Act on safety in the railway traffic with Directive 2004/49/EC. C. On the other hand, although the Railway Act coincides with the corresponding European Union Directives, its decrees are still not applied in practice in the area of maintenance. According to this Act, railway infrastructure must be maintained in a condition which ensures safe and unobstructed railway traffic, as well as quality and regular transport..

D.Creation of an annual maintenance plan is performed according to the existing technical regulations for the area of maintenance, which is adjusted to the application of track recording vehicle EM 80L. The mentioned track recording vehicle cannot measure parameters defined according to EN E.Technical limitations for the application of the European standards in the area of maintenance planning are: lack of database on the reference track geometry on the existing Serbian Railways network, the lack of strategy and material means for filling in the base, incompetence in the level of expertise of the personnel for work on modern track recording vehicles, lack of knowledge in the area of management and maintenance of railway infrastructure, not following Directives, TSIs and technical standards in this area. F.Only after solving the given legal and technical limitations, can the Directorate for Railways possibly achieve harmonization of technical regulations in the area of maintenance. On the contrary, harmonized regulations could not be applicable in practice.

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia through the research project No : “Research of technical- technological, staff and organisational capacity of Serbian Railways, from the viewpoint of current and future European Union requirements”.

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