System dynamics and long-term behaviour of railway vehicles, track and subgrade:: report on the DFG priority programme in Germany and subsequent research

This paper deals with the motivation and the aims of the DFG Priority Programme 1015 System Dynamics and Long-Term Behaviour of Vehicle, Track and Subgrade as well as its results. In Part I an overview will be given, where the authors try to answer the following three questions: (i) where did we start from, (ii) what has been achieved and (iii) what still needs to be done. The critical assessment of the results intends to point out topics of further research. In Part II selected results will be shown, where we restrict ourselves to vehicle dynamics, the contact problem and track dynamics. Here, also new results are included that appeared after the Priority Programme has been completed.