In this paper, we combine engineering and economic methods to estimate the relative maintenance cost of different types of damage on the Swedish rail infrastructure. The engineering method is good at predicting damage from traffic, while the economic method is suitable for establishing a relationship between damage and cost. We exploit the best features of both methods in a two-stage approach and demonstrate its applicability for rail infrastructure charging, based on a sample of 143 track sections comprising about 11,000 km of track. The paper implements for the first time the method previously proposed in Smith et al., whilst also enhancing the method in several respects. We demonstrate how the estimated relative maintenance costs related to different damage mechanisms can be used to calculate the marginal cost of different vehicle types. The results are relevant for infrastructure managers in Europe who wish to differentiate their track access charges such that each vehicle pays its short run-marginal damage cost, which can support more efficient use of the rail infrastructure and influence vehicle design to minimize system costs.

在本文中，我们结合工程和经济方法来估算瑞典铁路基础设施上不同类型破坏的相对维护成本。工程方法擅长于预测交通造成的损害，而经济方法则适合于建立损害与成本之间的关系。我们以143个轨道段（包括约11,000公里的轨道）为样本，以两种方式利用这两种方法的最佳功能，并论证了其在铁路基础设施收费中的适用性。本文首次实现了Smith等人先前提出的方法，同时还在几个方面进行了改进。我们演示了如何将与不同损坏机制相关的估计相对维护成本用于计算不同类型车辆的边际成本。