Innovative Changes for Maintenance of Railway by Using ICT–To Achieve “Smart Maintenance”

Because of the information revolution of the late 20th century, railway operators have made a chance to realize innovative change in railway maintenance. The Research and Development Centre of JR East Group has proposed “the Smart Maintenance Initiative” as 21st century innovation in maintenance of railway equipment. And Technical Center, which is a part of this center, treats the subjects of almost field relating railway maintenance (for example, rolling stock, track, civil engineering structures, electric & signal facilities).This paper describes the overview of “the Smart Maintenance Initiative” and our latest R&D activities such as high-frequency monitoring equipment, and analysis methods to observe degradations of facilities by gained data.