A taxonomy of railway track maintenance planning and scheduling: A review and research trends

Railway track maintenance and renewal are vital for railway safety, train punctuality, and travel comfort. Therefore, having cost-effective maintenance is critical in managing railway infrastructure assets. There has been a considerable amount of research performed on mathematical and decision support models for improving the application of railway track maintenance planning and scheduling.

This article reviews the literature in decision support models for railway track maintenance planning and scheduling and transforms the results into a problem taxonomy. Furthermore, the article discusses current approaches in optimising maintenance planning and scheduling, research trends, and possible gaps in the related decision-making models.