[Opt-Net] PhD Position: Maintenance Optimization for Rail Infrastructure Systems

[Thomas Kalinowski]

The School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of 
Newcastle is offering an Australian Postgraduate Award (Industry) 
scholarship worth AU$25,849 per annum. The scholarship will be funded 
under an Australia Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant, and is 
collaborative with Martin Savelsbergh and Natashia Boland from Georgia 
Institute of Technology’s ISyE School, and with Aurizon, Australia’s 
largest rail freight operator.

Coal and iron ore export supply chains critically depend on the 
transport capacity provided by Australia's rail infrastructure. 
Increasingly so, because coal and iron ore export supply chains are
literally getting longer: mineral bodies closer to ports have been 
exploited first, and as these become exhausted, supply chains are 
stretching further to reach harder-to-get-at resources. Combined with 
increasing export volumes, this makes intelligent, efficient, and 
effective management of this critical piece of infrastructure vitally 
important. Maintenance plays a crucial role in the management of rail 
infrastructure as it ensures that infrastructure components, e.g., 
track, signals, and rail crossings, are in a condition that allows safe, 
reliable, and efficient transport. This project will investigate the key 
planning activities in preventive maintenance of rail infrastructure 
systems, and seek to develop effective optimization algorithms for their 
solution.

This PhD will contribute to a larger team activity, addressing the whole 
system; the successful candidate will join a team of several other 
researchers working on complementary aspects of the system.

Expressions of interest are preferred before August 1, 2015, however 
later interest will be considered until the position is filled. To 
express your interest in a scholarship please send your CV, together 
with an academic transcript showing details of all courses you have 
taken, the grades you were awarded, an interpretation of those grades, 
and the names and contact details of at least two persons who can
provide confidential references, to the contact person at the address 
shown below. If your transcript is not in English, please provide an 
English translation.

This project will be supervised by Dr Thomas Kalinowski.

Main contact:
Dr Thomas Kalinowski
School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
The University of Newcastle
T: +61 2 4921 6558
E: Thomas.Kalinowski at newcastle.edu.au