On the enhancement of railways transitions zones behaviour through maintenance

Transition zones between embankments and rigid structures (e.g. bridges, culverts and tunnels) often require additional maintenance to preserve track quality, which not only increases costs but also causes delays. In order to reduce the maintenance, a better understanding of the behaviour of these zones is required. To this end, a strategy was developed and implemented to undertake a detailed investigation, using both static and dynamic measurements, of a standard transition zone in the Netherlands, which was located on a typical Dutch soft soil. <br>In this paper the observed results, for both static and dynamic behaviour of the system, will be discussed, in addition the differences between the original design assumptions and the real behaviour for this particular structure will be highlighted.