The rail infrastructure represents a complex system characterised by highly safety-critical components and its potential in the area of sustainability. The greatest weakness of the system can be named as the insufficient digitalisation of the components and the impeded availability of data due to the partial lack of data collection and static regulations. Due to the progressive liberalisation of the market, solutions must be found, whereby the maintenance of infrastructure assets is an influential lever. As a cost driver and influencer on the operation and thus on the success of companies in the railway industry, it is necessary to find optimisation solutions for existing maintenance processes. Dynamic criticality assessment is one way of exploiting the existing digitalisation potential and making the dynamics of the market controllable by providing a reliable forecast of component-specific plant conditions based on plant data. Based on the plant complexity, data availability and the environmental conditions, a prioritisation of the plants is carried out and recommendations for action (for the adjustment of the maintenance strategy) are generated. It thus provides the foundation for dynamic and data-based maintenance strategy adaptation. This thesis deals with the status quo of maintenance management of companies in the rail infrastructure sector and the survey of the potentials of implementing a dynamic criticality assessment into an existing asset and maintenance management software application. In order to answer the questions regarding the relevant influencing criteria for the identification of critical assets in the rail infrastructure sector and the development of a concept for the introduction of a criticality assessment, the work is divided into two focal points. The first is the theoretical part, which deals with the scientific-theoretical foundations. The present system of rail infrastructure was delimited and the challenges and general principles of maintenance management were elaborated. Furthermore, the basics and the process of criticality assessment and the development of success factors and criteria were dealt with. The second focus is on the practical part, whereby a comprehensive analysis regarding relevant standards for the risk assessment of rail infrastructure and an expert Delphi with selected experts from the field of maintenance management in the railway sector were carried out. In addition to a description of the structure and implementation of the survey, the results are presented in this part. The thesis concludes with an adaptation concept of an existing criticality assessment tool for the manufacturing industry, which was examined for its suitability for application in the infrastructure sector.