RTRI REPORT Apr. 2006
REVIEW

Toward the Systematization and Innovation of Track Technology

Hideyuki TAKAI


  All technological development follow the process of "Innovation (or Invention)" -> "Improvement"-> "Steadiness," and will be followed by another new innovation. It is the same for track technology in the history of 180 years of railway. Generally we can consider the period of 1960's when Tokaido shinkansen opened as "Innovative period," with temporal stagnation period in late 1970's, the period of late 1980's with speed up projects, and that of late 1990's with high efficiency and cost performance, as "Improvement period," and the period of recent years as "Steadiness" period. Now it is the stage of systematization of newly developed technologies such as monitoring, analysis, estimation and optimization technology, and it is also the approach run stage of technology innovation oriented for the system change of railway.


* Full papers of RTRI Report are written in Japanese.

Copyright (c) 2006 Railway Technical Research Institute