Title: Asset maintenance management: state of the art in the European railways

Authors: Arjen Zoeteman

Addresses: Section of Road and Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5048, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands

Abstract: Infrastructure managers increasingly have to deliver to defined performance levels, related to system reliability, availability and life cycle costs, as a result of increasing pressures from governments and operators. This paper will investigate the consequences of this development for the newly established European Railway|s infrastructure managers (IMs). It particularly focuses on the state of the art in the maintenance planning process. IMs have difficulty in adapting to the quickly changing expectations on reliability and affordability. Several methods and tools for asset maintenance management have been developed, but their application in practice is still scarce. Significant challenges currently being tackled are the design of computerised maintenance management systems and their implementation in a traditionally fragmented (budget-driven) maintenance organisation.

Keywords: asset management; European Railways; life cycle costing; critical infrastructures; infrastructure managers; next generation infrastructures; maintenance planning; maintenance management; CMMS; computerised maintenance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCIS.2006.009436

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, 2006 Vol.2 No.2/3, pp.171 - 186

Published online: 31 Mar 2006 *

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