Busan Transportation Corporation has applied eco-friendly composite railway ties made from recycled plastic to a switch section of an urban railway for the first time in Korea. By replacing aging wooden ties with eco-friendly materials, the corporation is improving maintenance efficiency while accelerating its move toward carbon neutrality and a circular economy.
Busan Transportation Corporation said Wednesday it has completed work to replace aging wooden ties with composite crossties for circular systems (CCS) in the switch section of the Yangsan turnback track on Busan Metro Line 2.
The project used glass-fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composite sleepers (GF-TCS), developed last year by the Korea Railroad Research Institute. Made from a composite material produced by recycling waste plastic, the ties maintain the same level of workability and installation convenience as conventional wooden ties, while significantly improving durability and maintenance performance.
Until now, wooden ties, which are easy to cut and drill, have mainly been used in special track sections such as switches and rail joints. However, the need to introduce eco-friendly alternative materials has been steadily raised, as environmental problems arising from the preservative treatment process and rising maintenance costs from long-term decay and deterioration have become concerns.
The new composite ties maintained their performance without structural damage in repeated load tests of more than 2 million cycles, securing their safety. In particular, being applied for the first time in Korea to the Yangsan turnback switch section, where installation is difficult due to the complex track structure, the ties proved their potential for use at actual urban railway sites.
The corporation attaches significance to the project as a case of the circular economy in which waste plastic is recycled into a core railway material, going beyond a simple facility replacement. It expects the project to help reduce maintenance costs while expanding eco-friendly railway infrastructure.
"By applying resource-circulating composite ties to an urban railway switch section for the first time in Korea, we have secured both safety and eco-friendliness at the same time," said Lee Byung-jin, president of the corporation. "We will continue to actively introduce eco-friendly new technologies with citizen safety as our top priority, working to build a sustainable urban railway."
