Estimating the impact of traffic on rail infrastructure maintenance costs; the importance of axle loads

In this paper, we estimate the impact of axle loads on rail infrastructure maintenance costs. The results show that cost elasticities with respect to traffic increase with axle load. Using these elasticities, we calculate marginal costs for traffic that are differentiated with respect to the trains' average tonnage per axle. The results are relevant when setting track access charges in Europe as well as for railway cost studies in general, considering that the empirical evidence in this paper gives support to the engineering perspective — that is, axle loads are important to consider when assessing the damage caused by traffic.