Activities aimed at maintaining and preserving railway infrastructure are a fundamental concern in order to guarantee the reliability and safety of railway operations. REFER ensures compliance with the most stringent quality requirements, with an emphasis on constant improvements and innovation.

Planning and Monitoring

REFER ensures the strategic planning of maintenance and preservation activities, promoting standardised intervention and procedures, including monitoring the state of the infrastructure and verifying compliance with plans.

While preparing its plans for infrastructure maintenance, REFER develops and uses risk analysis tools and degradation models.

Increasingly evolved equipment and techniques are used for diagnostic and inspections activities for the different components of the infrastructure (track, bridges, tunnels, catenary systems, traction energy, signalling and geotechnical engineering, including monitoring and inspecting the safety of embankments).

Maintenance

The significant investment that has been made to modernise the railway infrastructure as well as the overall improvements made available to railway passengers have substantially increased the quantity of equipment that requires maintenance (especially after the increased levels of electrification and the use of electronic signalling) and has made maintenance activities more complex.

The area of maintenance at REFER has been structured into three main types of activities:

• Systematic preventive maintenance – inspections, diagnoses and routine intervention in equipment and facilities, at pre-defined intervals, so as to ascertain the existing condition of the infrastructure and reduce the probability of faults and malfunctions;
   
• Conditioned preventive maintenance – planned renovation, based on the observations and diagnoses obtained during systematic preventive maintenance, so as to ensure the smooth functioning and suitability of equipment and facilities;
   
• Corrective maintenance – aimed at repairing faults or malfunctions occurring during service.