Maintenance can represent a significant portion of the cost in asset intensive organisations, as breakdowns have an impact on the capacity, quality and cost of operation. However, the formulation of a maintenance strategy depends on a number of factors, including the cost of down time, reliability characteristics and redundancy of assets. Consequently, the balance between preventive maintenance (PM) and corrective maintenance (CM) for minimising costs varies between organisations and assets. Nevertheless, there are some rules of thumb on the balance between PM and CM, such as the 80/20 rule. Studies on the relationship between PM and CM in practice are rare. Therefore, PM and CM costs are studied in this article by analysing historical maintenance data. A case study of rail infrastructure historical data is carried out to determine the shares of PM and CM, together with a cost–benefit analysis (CBA) to assess the value of PM. The results show that the PM represents 10% to 30% of the total maintenance cost when user costs, i.e. train delays, are included as a CM cost. The CBA shows the benefit of PM is positive with a benefit–cost ratio at 3.3. However, the results depend on the inclusion/exclusion of user costs, besides individual organisational parameters.

Railways are large, geographically dispersed assets, consisting of numerous systems, subsystems and components, for which considerable amounts of data and numerous indicators are generated for monitoring their operation and maintenance. Proper assessment of operation and maintenance performance is essential for sustainable and competitive rail transportation. Composite indicators (CIs), or indices, can simplify the performance measurement by summarising the overall performance of a complex asset into a single figure, making it easier to interpret than multiple indicators and plots. In this article, a CI termed ‘rail infrastructure integrity index’ is developed and verified in a case study. The results show that CIs can be used for benchmarking and assessing the overall performance of railway sections in a single figure, indicating which sections need further study. Their implementation should allow data users to do sensitivity analysis and decomposition for traceability.Keywords: rail infrastructure; composite indicator; integrity index; dependability; RAMS; benchmarking

Tillgänglighet är ett mått på driftsäkerhet och mäter förmågan hos en enhet att kunna utföra krävd funktion under angivna förutsättningar vid ett givet tillfälle eller tidsintervall. Mått på tillgänglighet kan hittas i många områden, såsom inom elektronik, IT, militär, elnät och industri. Men ett sådan mått har inte integrerats i järnvägar enligt erkända definitioner. Måttet är intressant eftersom det inbegriper både tekniska och organisatoriska faktorer. Vikten av att kunna mäta tillgänglighet i järnvägar har betonats i olika järnvägsprojekt, t.ex. i EU-projektet INNOTRACK. Därmed, som en del i projektet Åtgärds- och effektmodell, i samarbete med Trafikverket, Järnvägstekniskt centrum och Luleå tekniska universitet, har tillgänglighet som mått inom järnvägar studerats.Resultet visar att det föreslagna tillgänglighetmåttet ger en högre korrelation med tågförseningar (R^2 = 0,94) än vad funktionsfel ger med tågförseningar (R^2 = 0,73). Resultatet är rimligt eftersom tillgängligheten beror på funktionssäkerhet, underhållsmässighet och underhållssäkerhet, d.v.s. det innefattar funktionsfel, reparationstid och logistiktid.

Enterprise resource planning systems and maintenance management systems are commonly used by organisations for handling of maintenance records, through a graphical user interface. A maintenance record consists of a number of data fields, such as drop-down lists, list boxes, check boxes and text entry fields. In contrast to the other data fields, the operator has the freedom to type in any text in the text entry fields, to complement and make the maintenance record as complete as possible. Accordingly, the text entry fields of maintenance records can contain any words, in any number.Data quality is crucial in statistical analysis of maintenance records, and therefore manual analysis of maintenance records’ text entry fields is often necessary before any decision making. However, this may be a very tedious and resource consuming process.In this article, natural language processing is applied to text entry fields of maintenance records in a case study, to show how it can bring further value in the assessment of technical assets’ performance.Keywords: Maintenance records, Natural language processing, Structured and unstructured data, Data quality, Rail infrastructure.

Purpose:The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review of the performance measurement in maintenance. The authors aim to discuss the background and development of the performance measurement for maintenance, besides defining the concept of performance measures for maintenance and the frameworks developed.Design/methodology/approach:A detailed and extensive literature search and study was undertaken by the authors on the concept and definition of performance measurement, performance indicators, maintenance performance indicators and various performance frameworks. The history and theory of performance measurement over different phases of business and technological developments have been critically examined and analysed in this review paper. Findings:This paper reviews and presents the different performance indicators (PIs) and performance measurement (PM) frameworks like; balanced scorecard, performance prism, performance pyramid and performance matrix etc, and identifies their characteristics and shortcomings. After considering related issues and challenges, frameworks and approaches for the maintenance performance measurement (MPM) are also presented, where the emerging techniques like; e-maintenance have also been discussed amongst others. More and more industries are applying the balanced and integrated MPM frameworks for their competitive survivability and sustainability.Practical implications:The concept, issues and approaches considered for the MPM frameworks can be adapted by the practicing managers, while trying to define and develop an MPM framework for the operation and maintenance activities. The considerations of the advantages and limitations of different frameworks can provide insights to the managers for implementation. Originality/value:Some literature reviews on MPM and MPM frameworks are available today. This paper makes an attempt to provide a detailed and relevant literature review, besides adding value in this new and emerging area.

Rail traffic has increased manifold during the last decade. This development and the need for shift transportation from road to rail to decrease CO2 emission, creates a challenge for the railway industry to improve capacity in the network. The challenge is to do more effective inspection and maintenance in less time. An EU project ‘AUTOMAIN’ was initiated to optimize and automate maintenance and inspection activities with introduction of new planning and scheduling tools and methodologies. The project looked into reducing the maintenance possession time by around 40%. The project aim was to; adopt best practices from other industries in maintenance optimization, developing novel track inspection approaches for freight routes. The scope was for in-train measuring and self-inspecting switch, researching and assessing innovations that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of large scale inspection and maintenance processes with a scope on track and switch maintenance, track inspection; developing key technologies that will drive the development of modular infrastructure design, and developing a new maintenance planning and scheduling tool to optimize the maintenance activities, taking account of the benefits brought about by other improvements in this project.The Consortium composition covers the railway maintenance and inspection field like; infrastructure managers, contractors, train operating companies, railway component industry, research organizations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and railway industry related organizations. In this paper, the authors have tried to summarize the methodology and results achieved in this project and how it has achieved the reduced maintenance possession time for higher railway traffic movements.

The assessment and analysis of railway infrastructure capacity is an essential task in railway infrastructure management carried out to meet the required quality and capacity demand of railway transport. For sustainable and dependable infrastructure management, it is important to assess railway capacity limitation from the point of view of infrastructure performance. However, the existence of numerous performance indicators often leads to diffused information that is not in a format suitable to support decision making. In this paper, we demonstrated the use of fuzzy inference system for aggregating selected railway infrastructure performance indicators to relate maintenance function to capacity situation.

The selected indicators consider the safety, comfort, punctuality and reliability aspects of railway infrastructure performance. The resulting composite indicator gives a reliable quantification of the health condition or integrity of railway lines. A case study of the assessment of overall infrastructure performance which is an indication of capacity limitation is presented using indicator data between 2010 and 2012 for five lines on the network of Trafikverket (Swedish Transport Administration).

The results are presented using customised performance dashboard for enhanced visualisation, quick understanding and relevant comparison of infrastructure conditions for strategic management. This gives additional information on capacity status and limitation from maintenance management perspective.

Purpose - In this study we investigate how performance of linear assets can be analysed and displayed, considering both the technical asset and the user context, to simplify cognitive tasks of planning and decision-making.Design/methodology/approach - Linear, or continuous assets, such as roads, railways, electrical grids and pipelines, are large, geographically spread out technical systems. Linear assets are comprised of system, subsystem and component levels. Thus, asset managers are involved with each level of the linear asset; asset management has strategic, tactical and operational levels. A methodology is developed to link together the technical and organisational levels and to measure asset performance considering their spatial extension. Geographical location and time are used as independent variables.Findings - For performance measurement of linear assets, it is found that the spatial extension is an equally generic dimension as time is for technical assets in general. Furthermore, as linear assets actually are combinations of linear and point assets; separate analysis of these assets is a prerequisite. Asset performance has been studied in a case study in terms failures and cost; the results indicate that the methodology visualise poor, as well as good, performance in an easy to interpret manner. Besides, the results indicate that other parameters related to dependability can be presented in a similar way.Practical implications - This study highlights the importance of including the spatial or geographical extension of linear assets in infrastructure managers’ performance measurement. It is believed that the methodology can make planning and decision making more effective by pointing out improvement areas in technical assets, in a way that is appealing to both technicians and managers.Originality/value - The presented methodology and case study analysed performance in function of both the technical and organisational levels, including the spatial component. It is believed that the methodology for analysing and visualising performance of linear assets is distinctive.Keywords - Linear assets, performance measurement, dependability, maintenance, eMaintenance, railways

Congestion of roads and sky, increasing energy costs and a demand to reduce emissions, have created a need to shift transportation from road and air to rail. Consequently, rail utilisation is increasing, adding stress to the rail infrastructure and time constraints to maintenance. At the same time, the performance and capacity of rail infrastructure are expected to be preserved or even improved. Railway performance and capacity can be enhanced by: expanding infrastructure; introducing better technology; and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of operation and maintenance. Performance measurement has shown to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of organisations, but the development and integration of performance measurements are essential. A key issue in performance measurement is the process of collecting, storing and converting data into information and knowledge, i.e. data analysis and presentation. Organisations use various systems and methods to collect and analyse data, but the analysis of the collected data to extract relevant information is often a challenge. With improved data analysis and performance measurement, rail transportation can meet the requirements of performance and capacity. Specifically, maintenance planning and optimisation of preventive maintenance can be made more effective, which can decrease interruptions of train operation, reduce costs and ensure safety.In this thesis, a model for monitoring and analysis of operation and maintenance performance of rail infrastructure is developed. The model includes various methods for analysis of operation and maintenance data. The work aims to facilitate improvements and optimisation of decision-making in railways.The thesis consists of two parts. The first part gives an introductory summary of the subject and research, followed by a discussion of the appended papers, an extension of the research and conclusions. The second part consists of five appended papers. The first paper concerns the development of a model for improving performance measurement of rail infrastructure. The second paper is a study of indicators related to rail infrastructure performance. The three subsequent papers are development of data analysis methods for: operational availability of rail infrastructure, composite indicators and maintenance costs.Keywords: operation and maintenance, indicators, performance measurement, maintenance cost, rail infrastructure, linear assets, preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, aggregation, composite indicators, cost-benefit analysis, decision support

An effective and efficient railway infrastructure is essential to assure assetperformance which is often measured in terms of high availability, high level ofsafety and good track quality, besides value addition. Thus, the measurement ofasset maintenance performance has become an essential element of strategicthinking for railway asset owners and managers. The area of asset maintenanceperformance is relatively new and emerging, besides its complexity with regards to the many internal and external stakeholders, all with conflicting interests. Therailway infrastructures’ overall objectives and strategies are required to be broken down through the hierarchical level, converting them into various key performance indicators (KPIs) for measurement, data collection, analysis, and decision making at appropriate levels through aggregation. This paper looks into some of the performance measurement issues of railways, and how these issues can be solved through data aggregation, analysis, simulation,and presentation. Following a discussion of these issues, a case study is carried out to demonstrate how performance can be analysed and presented.