Physical and Cultural Weed Control Working Group of - European ...

9 th EWRS Workshop on Physical and Cultural Weed Control 88
Samsun, Turkey, 28 – 30 March 2011
maximum speed. Tolerance of weeds is often lower at high speed lines while seldom used tracks in
industrial areas can be allowed to have more vegetation.
A second step is to assess the railway lines with the N-sensor technology and create weedmaps.
In turn, these maps are used by the SRMA to address weeding operations (chemical or
mechanical) on the lines and schedule equipment and staff to areas that need maintenance.
The N-sensor can also give a measurement of unwanted vegetation along the railway
embankment, thus indicating a need of clearing of trees and shrubs.
Further R&D must of course be conducted, but we anticipate that an operating system mounted
on a maintenance train will be built in 2011-2012.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Swedish Railway Maintenance Authority (today Swedish Transport
Administration) and mr Jan-Erik Lundh who has financed this pioneer project. We would also like
to thank mr Knud Nissen working at Lantmännen and mr Anders Wohlrat for their help with the Nsensor.
Figure 1. The test rig. A N-sensor is mounted on top of a small wagon pulled by a inspection
trolley. The software of the sensor includes information on biomass and position.