NURail CoE recently sponsored the Big Data Conference on 10-11 December 2025 at the University of Delaware. The theme of the conference was “Converting the Mountain of Data Collected by Railway Systems into Effective Maintenance Planning Information with a Focus on Railway Needs and Practical Applications”. Three NURail CoE partners presented research during the conference, including the University of Delaware, Rutgers University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. These presentations were:
- John Ng and Xiang Liu, Rutgers University, “Artificial Intelligence Aided Railroad Trespassing Detection and Data Analytics”
- Piero Caputo and Monique Head, University of Delaware “Expanding the Detection of Track Support Defects through Multi-Point Wayside Technology”
- Xinhao Liu, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, “Statistical Modeling of Longer Train Derailment Rates”
- Manisha Kandel and Joseph Palese, University of Delaware, “Data Driven Risk Modeling for Railroad Inspection Scheduling”
- Johnson Chukwu and Joseph Palese, University of Delaware, “Development of a Risk Based Track Geometry Inspection Model for Optimizing Inspection Intervals”
The 2025 conference expanded on previous years’ conferences and introduced new and emerging analysis techniques to show how they can be applied to the large volume of inspection and operational data collected by railways to improve their planning of the critical capital and maintenance programs.
