Author(s)

M. D. Mc Naught, C. J. Fourie

Abstract

In the passenger railway service industry, there are a plethora of problems and everyday, big decisions have to be made by executives as to which problems are most important. The key areas of a passenger railway service company are identified by conducting a customer needs analysis. These needs are then converted into operational requirements, which are considered to be the functional ‘building blocks’ of the company. An asset management cost analysis method is employed to determine three critical cost areas from the financial statements of ten passenger railway service companies. This gives executives a financial handle to engineering problems. The problems are discussed from an engineering perspective and a solution method is presented which will save cost in safety, maintenance and operations domains.

Keywords

railway, reliability, needs analysis, infrastructure, maintenance, safety