The negative operational consequences of temporal non-availabilities of railway infrastructure lead to additional costs on the railway undertaking side. In case of track work, non-availability is necessary in order to keep lines in sustainable condition for decades. Balancing higher operational costs due to longer track closures and increasing track work cost in case of (too) short track possessions is a main challenge in track asset management. A sound calculation of the costs of operational hindrances (COH) is thus a pre-condition for optimization. In this Area of Research, we aim for calculating and applying COH.
