Research summary ProRail acts in a multi-stakeholder environment, with various downstream stakeholders, e.g., governmental bodies and train operators, and various upstream stakeholders, e.g., currently four contractors and their suppliers. The various stakeholders have conflicting interests: both maintenance activities and trains compete for limited time on the tracks. Our research addresses this challenge for ProRail as capacity and asset manager by investigating in three work packages (WPs): 1. The conflicting and dynamic interplay of the performance requirements of rail system operation and maintenance and the interactions of ProRail with its clients and contractors in determining key performance indicators (KPIs). Using semi-structured interviews, multiple case studies and action research we intend to provide relational value strategies (e.g., role sharing, cross-project alliances) for the interaction of ProRail with its this chain into recent (cooperative and noncooperative) game-theoretical models and analyses to improve our understanding of the impact of acknowledging the individual decision makers and their incentives. Finally, the impact on design decisions and contract conditions is studied and described. Contracting insights from WP2, focusing on an asset life cycle plan, and WP3, focusing on parts supply, will be combined and condensed. Utilisation summary Our results are relevant for a number of ProRail?s departments as well as stakeholders. WP1 will be relevant for the procurement, contract management, and asset management of ProRail. The relational value strategies and the KPIs will serve as input for setting up contractual arrangements with the maintenance contractors, optimizing the maintenance strategies, and supporting ProRail in accountability issues. A close cooperation between researchers and practitioners and the co-development of relational value strategies and KPIs will ensure the utilisation and implementation of the results. The results of WP2 are relevant in the context of SAM, ProRail?s System Asset Management. The PhD student in WP2 should therefore be trained by the SAM-academy that is being developed at ProRail and we expect the student to be part of a project team that implements SAM for one system. Being part of such a team guarantees information exchange between ProRail and the student, leading to useful results that can be implemented as soon as they are there (showing the proof of concept). WP3 will identify the improvement potential in the spare parts supply chain of ProRail, taking the current multitude of arrangements between ProRail and upstream stakeholders into account. Improvements, proposals for fair divisions of improvement gains, and incentive schemes to attain these gains will be provided. Additionally, insights will be given regarding new designs and setting up contracts. Besides the abovementioned efforts, the students will work at ProRail?s premises for one or two days a week and they will all attend the master class that ProRail plans to give. In most of our research activities, we will cooperate closely with people at ProRail to understand the setting and to get data that we need. This also enables us to directly feedback the results of our research. We further plan regular meetings, both with people involved in one WP and with all people involved in the project. In both cases, participants come from universities, ProRail, and supporting organisations. Near the end of our project, we expect the PhD students to pair with a ProRail representative in order to get the results written down in ProRail-style documents that can be used in everyday practice. We envision one such document on KPIs and their interface with the asset life cycle plan, with input from the PhD students in WPs 1 and 2, and one such document on defining contracts with upstream stakeholders, with input from the PhD students in WPs 2 and 3. We further intend to involve Bachelor and Master students throughout the project, who can also be located at one of ProRail?s stakeholders (supporting organisations). The activities that are specifically aimed at utilisation are bundled as WP4, so that progress in this respect can be monitored clearly. This research will also impact the curriculum of civil, mechanical and industrial engineers, e.g., in the Master?s course Infrastructure Management of UT-CME and the courses that UT-OPM is developing.stakeholders and, based on that, the development of KPIs of the railway system itself. 2. The development of an asset life cycle plan that specifies for all components on a track what type of maintenance (e.g., corrective and condition based) to perform, and when to do that, such that the defined KPIs (WP1) are achieved. Using historical data and physical models of degradation, it can be determined which (critical) failure modes to expect how often. Using quantitative models that combine this (technical) knowledge with life cycle cost data we can determine the optimal asset life cycle plan for a complete track, balancing time for operations and maintenance. We will further investigate how changes in the KPIs that ProRail agrees with its downstream stakeholders influence the asset life cycle plan and thus the life cycle costs. This links WP2 to WP1. 3. Efficiency, competition, and cooperation in ProRail?s upstream supply chain. We thoroughly analyze the current supply chain to quantify coordination potential. Subsequently, in order to obtain an overall optimal supply chain performance, we will incorporate the specific structure of