Estimation of railway vehicle speed using ground vibration measurements

In railway noise and vibration assessment, the vehicle speed is a significant concern, since vehicle/track and track/soil interaction strongly affects the vibration magnitude. The objective of this paper is to analyse the dominant frequency method considered efficient in speed evaluation. Some enhancements are brought in order to extend the method applicability to a large speed range (tram, intercity train, high-speed train). For this purpose, a cepstral analysis was implemented to perform first speed estimation and a running rms was used to detect precisely the carbody passage excitation. A fitting is also achieved in order to efficiently improve the performance. Results coming from a railway-induced ground vibration prediction model allow validating the potential of the dominant frequency method and its stability. An application is proposed, based on recent measured high-speed train ground vibrations, in order to estimate with accuracy the associated vehicle speed.