Maintenance assistance system and maintenance assistance method for railroad ground equipment

Abstract

An object is to improve the accuracy of prediction of deterioration of railroad ground equipment. Provided is a maintenance assistance system for railroad ground equipment, comprising: an environmental-information storage part storing environmental information containing information on weather observed at a plurality of geographical points and on geographical conditions at the geographical points; and an environmental-load estimation part holding a relational formula indicating the relationship between aged deterioration of railroad ground equipment and the environmental information, and configured to, upon specification of railroad ground equipment for which to execute deterioration prediction, acquire the environmental information which is recorded at a point near the installed position of the railroad ground equipment, during the target period of the deterioration prediction, and predict the degree of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment by using the acquired environmental information and the relational formula.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A maintenance assistance system for railroad ground equipment, comprising:
 an environmental-information storage part storing environmental information containing information on weather observed at a plurality of geographical points and on geographical conditions at the geographical points; and   an environmental-load estimation part holding a relational formula indicating a relationship between aged deterioration of railroad ground equipment and the environmental information, and configured to, upon specification of railroad ground equipment for which to, execute deterioration prediction, acquire the environmental information which is recorded at a point near an installed position of the railroad ground equipment, during a target period of the deterioration prediction, and predict a degree of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment by using the acquired environmental information and the relational formula.   
     
     
         2 . The maintenance assistance system for railroad ground equipment according to  claim 1 , further comprising:
 a transportation-information storage part storing transportation information containing conditions of travel and amounts of transportation of a train at a plurality of geographical points within line sections of a railroad within which the train is operated;   a transportation-load estimation part holding a relational formula indicating a relationship between aged deterioration of railroad ground equipment and the transportation information, and configured to, upon specification of the railroad ground equipment for which to execute the deterioration prediction, acquire the transportation information on a line section to which the railroad ground equipment belongs, during the target period of the deterioration prediction, and predict a degree of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment by using the acquired transportation information and the relational formula; and   a total-load estimation part configured to add up the degrees of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment, which are obtained from the environmental information and the transportation information.   
     
     
         3 . The maintenance assistance system for railroad ground equipment according to  claim 2 , further comprising:
 a train-behavior estimation part configured to calculate influence of the environmental information on the conditions of travel of the train, the environmental information being recorded at the point near the specified railroad ground equipment, for which to execute the deterioration prediction, wherein   the transportation-load estimation part predicts the degree of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment with the influence of the environmental information on the conditions of travel of the train taken into account, the influence being calculated by the train-behavior estimation part.   
     
     
         4 . The maintenance assistance system for railroad ground equipment according to  claim 1 , further comprising:
 an operation-information storage part storing operation information containing timings and contents of operations conducted on railroad ground equipment in line sections of a railroad;   an operation-load estimation part holding a relational formula indicating a relationship between aged deterioration of railroad ground equipment and the operation information, and configured to, upon specification of the railroad ground equipment for which to execute the deterioration prediction, acquire the operation information on a line section to which the railroad ground equipment belongs, during the target period of the deterioration prediction, and predict a degree of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment by using the acquired operation information and the relational formula; and   a total-load estimation part configured to add up the degrees of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment, which are obtained from the environmental information and the operation information.   
     
     
         5 . The maintenance assistance system for railroad ground equipment according to  claim 1 , further comprising:
 an equipment-information storage part storing installed positions of pieces of railroad ground equipment installed at line sections of a railroad, and type information being information indicating types of the pieces of equipment;   an environmental-deterioration-model storage part storing, for each of the types of the pieces of ground equipment, one or more environmental factors in the environmental information which influence aged deterioration of the piece of ground equipment, and a relational formula indicating a relationship between the environmental factors and the aged deterioration; and   an environmental-information estimation part configured to, in a case where it is impossible to acquire the environmental information on the specified railroad ground equipment, for which to execute the deterioration prediction, acquire ground equipment of a different type located near the specified railroad ground equipment from the equipment-information storage part, acquire the relational formula indicating the relationship between the environmental factors and the aged deterioration for the ground equipment of the different type from the environmental-deterioration-model storage part, and exclude an environmental factor irrelevant to the specified ground equipment from the acquired relational formula to thereby estimate the environmental information on the specified ground equipment.   
     
     
         6 . The maintenance assistance system for railroad ground equipment according to  claim 1 , further comprising:
 a conversion-information storage part storing correspondences between kilometrages in line sections of a railroad and ground absolute positions, wherein   the environmental-load estimation part converts a kilometrage at which the specified railroad ground equipment, for which to execute the deterioration prediction, is installed, into a ground absolute position by referring the conversion information storage part, and acquires the environmental information based on the absolute position obtained by the conversion.   
     
     
         7 . The maintenance assistance system for railroad ground equipment according to  claim 1 , further comprising:
 an inspection-information storage part storing a determination value and a determination timing which serve as a reference to determine the degree of deterioration of the railroad ground equipment, wherein   the environmental-load estimation part calculates a determination value for determining the degree of deterioration at a start of a deterioration-prediction-calculation period with the relational formula from the determination timing, and calculates the degree of deterioration in a deterioration prediction period based on the calculated determination value.   
     
     
         8 . A maintenance assistance method for railroad ground equipment, wherein a computer including a processor and a memory:
 stores environmental information containing information on weather observed at a plurality of geographical points and on geographical conditions at the geographical points; and   holds a relational formula indicating a relationship between aged deterioration of railroad ground equipment and the environmental information, and, upon specification of railroad ground equipment for which to execute deterioration prediction, acquires the environmental information which is recorded at a point near an installed position of the railroad ground equipment, during a target period of the deterioration prediction, and predicts a degree of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment by using the acquired environmental information and the relational formula.   
     
     
         9 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing a maintenance assistance program for railroad ground equipment, the maintenance assistance program causing a computer including a processor and a memory to:
 store environmental information containing information on weather observed at a plurality of geographical points and on geographical conditions at the geographical points; and   hold a relational formula indicating a relationship between aged deterioration of railroad ground equipment and the environmental information, and, upon specification of railroad ground equipment for which to execute deterioration prediction, acquire the environmental information which is recorded at a point near an installed position of the railroad ground equipment, during a target period of the deterioration prediction, and predict a degree of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment by using the acquired environmental information and the relational formula.