MTI reports on Reliability Centered Maintenance for rapid transit cars

The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) has issued “Reliability Centered Maintenance: A Case Study of Railway Transit Maintenance to Achieve Optimal Performance.” The research report, available at no charge on the MTI’s website, is a case study of a single heavy rail transit (rapid transit) agency in North America that instituted a Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) program. The study also examined the impact of RCM on rolling stock availability, reliability, and safety. “The data may help rail transit leaders determine future strategic directions that would improve this industry,” said Dr. Felix A. Martin, Jr., the report’s author. “Despite the RCM record in other fields, it has been used infrequently in heavy rail transit agencies.”

“The general problem addressed in this study relates to a number of rolling stock failures—ranging from five to 15 or more—in heavy rail transit, and the organizational need to cope with them,” said Martin. “These agencies have service delays almost daily—often greater than five minutes and frequently during peak revenue hours. Operational failures not only impact the customers’ satisfaction level and increase maintenance costs, but also deter patrons from relying on public transportation. And that leads to a revenue loss for the transit agency.”

For the first portion of this qualitative case study, Martin collected data from managers and non-managers through an open-ended interview. The second portion of the study explored how the RCM process affected rolling stock for availability, reliability, and safety through data derived from project documents and reports. “Exploring and identifying the patterns and obstacles is important,” Martin said, “because organizational leaders in other heavy rail transit systems may use this knowledge to help embed the RCM process more smoothly, efficiently, and effectively to obtain the desired results.”

Based on data analysis, seven themes emerged regarding obstacles maintenance employees experienced while RCM was implemented. First, there were problems with the predicted implementation time. The second theme focused on effective communication methods. Other themes included the influence of organizational culture on RCM implementation; the effect of RCM processes on employees; the most challenging aspects of implementing RCM; the most significant obstacles of implementing RCM; and the impact of RCM on rolling stock.

“The analysis revealed mixed results,” said Martin. “Some participants indicated an increase in safety and reliability, whereas others indicated a decrease. However, participants did indicate that there had been a significant increase in rolling stock availability since pre-RCM.”

MTI’s full report may be downloaded at no charge by clicking HERE.