This monograph presents a series of research activities with the goal of determining whether pressure measurement films are a suitable tool for a quantitative assessment of the wheel-rail contact area. Firstly, the effect of influential factors such as geometry, applied load and surface roughness on the resulting imprint was thoroughly examined by means of analytically approachable case studies. This allowed a precise determination of the systematic error that alters experimental outcomes. After that, finite element representations of the measurement procedure were explored in order to...