The Recent Applications of Machine Learning in Rail Track Maintenance: A Survey

Railway systems play a vital role in the world’s economy and movement of goods and people. Rail tracks are one of the most critical components needed for the uninterrupted operation of railway systems. However, environmental conditions or mechanical forces can accelerate the degradation process of rail tracks. Any fault in rail tracks can incur enormous costs or even results in disastrous incidents such as train derailment. Over the past few years, the research community has adopted the use of machine learning (ML) algorithms for diagnosis and prognosis of rail defects in order to help the railway industry to carry out timely responses to failures. In this paper, we review the existing literature on the state-of-the-art machine learning-based approaches used in different rail track maintenance tasks. As one of our main contributions, we also provide a taxonomy to classify the existing literature based on types of methods and types of data. Moreover, we present the shortcomings of current techniques and discuss what research community and rail industry can do to address these issues. Finally, we conclude with a list of recommended directions for future research in the field