Innovative Railway Industry Life-cycle Costing Tool
voestalpine Schienen GmbH, a leading international steel based technology and capital goods group, is presenting a one-of-its kind interactive life-cycle costing tool for the railway industry in the Middle East at Middle East Rail 2017.
Harsh environmental conditions like desert landscape require the most resistant rail steels to resist rapid rail degradation. voestalpine's tool enables infrastructure managers to evaluate various rail related procurement and maintenance strategies as well as to determine costs over the entire life cycle (LCC). Trade visitors to the exhibition can interactively calculate benefits of life-cycle cost and CO2 savings. The system allows users to select a variety of parameters including the type of operation, track radius, load, and the rail grinding regime as well as the rate of metal removal to determine the ideal solution in terms of cost over the life of the rail.
Commenting, Eng. Lukas Prettner, Product Management, voestalpine Schienen, said: "Ultimately, longest possible service lives combined with lowest maintenance necessities lead to maximum customer benefit in an economical point of view. This is a well-known fact as depreciation costs in infrastructure usually represent the majority of the costs, which decreases enormously by longer component service lives. The grinding costs are also a relevant parameter that can be positively influenced by choosing highly resistant rail materials, finally lowering the costs for rail maintenance."
voestalpine is also presenting new rail steel grades, highly digitalized integrated rail system solutions, and a wide range of services at the show.
Germany, Austria, and Switzerland are all regarded throughout the world as pioneers in digitalized railway infrastructures. For the first time, voestalpine has now received two major orders to develop and supply high-tech monitoring systems in Germany and Austria. In addition to numerous other projects outside Europe, voestalpine is playing a key role in extending China's high-speed rail network as a recognized specialist for high-speed turnouts. Already the longest network in the world, by 2025 it will have been extended to around 38,000 kilometers, roughly twice its current length. Most recently, around 300 special turnouts a year designed for speeds of up to 350 km/h have been delivered.
In the short-distance traffic sector, the Group has also won other important contracts in Asia to supply special turnouts for construction of the rapid transit railway in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and for the metros in Bangkok, Ho Chi Min City and Doha. All in all, the Group has recently succeeded in winning orders in the short-distance traffic sector for over 800 turnouts including transmission systems. Besides, voestalpine is supplying more than 26,000 tonnes of sophisticated high-quality rails for what is currently the world's largest metro project in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, together with the corresponding turnout and transmission technology.
