Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The Canadian railway industry is unique in that it must maintain tens of thousands of kilometres of tracks that traverse diverse physiographic regions. Assessing ground hazard risk in diverse physiographic and geologic domains presents a significant challenge to railway engineers as linear facilities are inherently exposed to a wider variety and higher frequency of ground hazards than single site facilities. Ground hazards encountered along railways are classed as: earth landslides, rock landslides, subsidence, debris slides, flow erosion, and stream erosion. These ground hazards cause a significant annual loss, estimated by the railway industry, to be in the millions of dollars, primarily from damage to infrastructure and interruption of business. All engineering projects have risk. Our ability to assess this risk is dependent on our understanding of the processes and hazards involved. The objective of this research is focused on developing a methodology for assessing the risks associated with multiple ground hazards along these railway corridors. The risk methodologies that will be developed will utilize the risk framework outlined in the Canadian Standard, Q850-97 Risk Management: Guidelines for Decision Makers, which is consistent with the Canadian Railway Safety Act: Safety Management System Guidelines. The approach will utilize both qualitative and quantitative risk methodologies and apply these methodologies to the major classes of ground hazard encountered by the railways. The implementation of the findings from this research is expected to enable the railway industry to better manage the risks associated with ground hazards encountered along their corridors. The outcome of this research is expected to form the foundation for ""Suggested Guidelines for Railway Ground Hazard Risk Management"". These guidelines will be extracted from this research and will be managed and produced by the Railway Ground Hazard Research Program (RGHRP). This is a cooperative research program established by CPR, CN and Transport Canada.