Optimal Structure and Two Case Study Implementations of a Railway Maintenance Management System

Abstract

Railway networks stretch over thousands of kilometers and consist of a tremendous number of objects and components that exhibit markedly different behavior. The only effective manner in which a railway can manage the behavior of all of these objects and keep them under control to ensure traffic safety is to apply the condition-based approach to maintenance and renewal (M&R) planning, embodied by a versatile, dedicated railway maintenance management system (RMMS). The aim of this paper is to describe the optimal structure and manner of implementing an RMMS. For that reason, two case studies of railway maintenance management systems at two railways of different levels of sophistication are presented in this paper, demonstrating that a properly designed RMMS can be successfully implemented at clearly different railways, despite the key challenges of (1) access/acquisition of key data and interaction with the existing information technology environment, and (2) railways’ organizational structure and interaction with traditional M&R practices and procedures.