It has been said for long that the track technology belongs to empirical science, since the track behavior, or one of its major objectives, is extremely complicated with its mechanism not sufficiently clarified yet. However, it is now becoming possible to describe the mechanism in quantitative terms owing to the recent development of track technology in various fields, such as monitoring, analysis, prediction and optimization. This report introduces the research and develop activities in the field of track technology that is rapidly changing while aiming at a breakaway from the so-called experience technology.

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