Integrating surveying railway special grid pins with terrestrial laser scanning targets for monitoring rail transport infrastructure

•Surveying sign to integrate sRSG pins, TLS targets, and NFC developed.•Integrated sRSG TLS signs applicable to monitoring rail transport infrastructure.•sRSG TLS signs realise versatile and optimised surveying and diagnostics.•sRSG TLS signs can help monitor the track geometry and turnout conditions. Surveying railway special grid (sRSG) pins were integrated with terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) targets and near-field communication to develop an optimised and universal surveying sign that can be used to mount surveying prisms or adapters with prisms. The developed sRSG TLS signs can be used to define the X, Y, and H coordinates and adjustment data for the axes of tracks and turnouts, which can be collected and shared with smartphones. Three types of TLS targets were considered for the optimised sign. The developed sRSG TLS sign will allow remote identification and data transmission solutions to be adopted that facilitate surveying and diagnostic work. The results of this study demonstrated the practicality and usefulness of the integrated sRSG TLS sign.