Civil Engineering and Architecture 10(2): 557-566, 2022 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/cea.2022.100214 Risk Assessment of Railway Switch and Crossing Failures: Case Study of an Urban Rail Transit in Thailand Ratthaphong Meesit, Patraphorn Phornthepkasemsant * , Rojjanast Rattanawan, Thitinan Ruamsab Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Burapha University, Chon Buri 20131, Thailand Received August 7, 2021; Revised January 26, 2022; Accepted February 21, 2022 Cite This Paper in the following Citation Styles (a): [1] Ratthaphong Meesit, Patraphorn Phornthepkasemsant, Rojjanast Rattanawan, Thitinan Ruamsab , "Risk Assessment of Railway Switch and Crossing Failures: Case Study of an Urban Rail Transit in Thailand," Civil Engineering and Architecture, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 557-566, 2022. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2022.100214. (b): Ratthaphong Meesit, Patraphorn Phornthepkasemsant, Rojjanast Rattanawan, Thitinan Ruamsab (2022). Risk Assessment of Railway Switch and Crossing Failures: Case Study of an Urban Rail Transit in Thailand. Civil Engineering and Architecture, 10(2), 557-566. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2022.100214. Copyright©2022 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract Railways are becoming the main transportation mode in Thailand. Thus, maintaining the optimal service level to passengers is one of the significant issues that need to be addressed. This makes the way to manage railway assets extremely important, especially with the essential assets on a railway network such as switches and crossings (S&C). This study presents how the risk of switch and crossing failures could be assessed and managed. The process of the risk management is based on ISO 31000, and the method used to analyse the risk is the Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA). In detail, the switches and crossings on the Airport Rail Link city line (ARL), Thailand, are considered as a case study. The interview data from six experts, engineers and technicians who are responsible for the maintenance of S&C were used to determine the risk of each S&C component. The results show that the point machines, check and wing rails are the most critical components of S&C in the case study, and the least critical components are heel blocks, slide chairs and closure rails. Based on these findings, it is suggested that the current S&C maintenance program of the ARL may need to be improved. The priority of the inspection and maintenance activities of each S&C component could be adjusted according to the risk evaluation results presented in this study. Keywords Asset Management, Switches and Crossings, Risk Assessment, FMECA 1. Introduction Railways have a major influence on the social development and the economic growth of the country. The benefits of railway systems are not only about the travel time saving, but it can also help reduce air pollution, the number of road accidents and social inequality. These are the reasons why recently there are many railway construction projects happening in Thailand. When these projects are completed, Thailand will become the centre of the railway network in Southeast Asia [1]. Although there are many advantages to have a substantial railway network, railway assets, such as trains, tracks and signalling systems are required to be maintained and managed properly in order to obtain the optimal service level. This is because if one of these assets fail. It could lead to a reduction in system performance such as delays and cancellations affecting over a widespread area [2]. Therefore, an effective asset management strategy is required for Thai railway network. One of the essential assets of a railway network would be switches and crossings [3]. These assets are normally located at the conflict points in a network because their main function is to change the direction of trains from one track to another. Hence, to achieve the maximum safety and service reliability level, these assets should be always at a good condition. The inspection and maintenance strategies of these assets are needed to be planned efficiently.