1.

Fleet Maintenance and Replacement

Failure rate is the frequency with which an engineered system or component fails, expressed, for
example, in failures per hour. It is often denoted by the Greek letter (lambda). It shows the
reliability of vehicles which is considered to be as one of the main performance features. Failure rate
is usually expressed in terms of two indicators

Mean Distance between Failures

Mean Time between Failures

Mean Distance between Failures (MDBF)

It is the average distance vehicles travels between two breakdowns in service. It can be expressed as

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The time period can be a day, a month and a year. MDBF measures how far buses/rails travel before
a mechanical failure takes one out of service.
Mean Time between Failures (MTBF)
It is the average time vehicles travels between two breakdowns in service. It can be expressed as

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The time period can be a day, a month and a year. Similar to MDBF, this also measures the
reliability of particular transit service.
To count both MTBF and MDBF, one has been careful enough to consider the kind or type of
failure. Not all failures can be considered for calculating these two indicators. Only those failures
which has significant impact on service, say for eg. Mechanical break-down, engine failure, loss of
power or brakes, so that vehicle couldnt continue to operate by itself can be counted as failures for
calculating both MTBF and MDBF.
The choice between MTBF and MDBF depends on the purpose of the desired statistic. Usually the
maintenance periods of some vehicle components, motor oil change, brake testing, and tire life are
monitored on the basis of vehicle distance travelled. But in the case of vehicle wear and tear, as well
as the operating costs are more related to duration of operation. For e.g. Vehicle cleaning will be
scheduled in time intervals. Similarly, total operating cost, labour cost are decided based on the no.
of hours travelled/ worked.
Reliability and MTBF
MTBF, or mean time between failures, is a basic measure of a systems reliability. It is typically
represented in units of hours. The higher the MTBF number is, the higher the reliability of the
product. The following equation illustrates this relationship.
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2. Vehicle Maintenance Procedure

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Vehicle maintenance is usually organized as a series of four or five different procedures that are
performed at intervals defined by distanc
distances vehicles have passed. But the regular
reg
interval to follow
the maintenance
ntenance procedures is not specified by government standards and thus depends on the
specific transit agency. Following are the three main maintenance procedures which are commonly
used in practice.
1) Reactive maintenance
2) Preventive maintenance
3) Predictive maintenance
Reactive maintenance
whose parts got failed or about to fail are repaired or replaced.
In this type of maintenance, vehicles wh
It is considered to be the lowest
owest quality maintenance
maintenance.
Preventive maintenance
Programmed maintenance procedure based on service intervals. It is generally organized as a series
of five different procedures that are performed at regular intervals which are defined by the distances
that the vehicles have passed. The following figure shows the same.

Figure 1:: Classification of vehicle maintenance procedure

Each service typee and its regular time interval are listed in the following table.
Table 1: Maintenance Service Time Interval
Service

Service Type

Interval

Cleaning, Brake
Inspection

Minor cleaning at one of the line

terminals

Daily

Service A
Service B
Service C
Service D
(Overhaul)

12,500 km
More comprehensive sets of
inspections, part replacements and
repair

50,000 km
1,00,000 km
4,00,00 km

Every vehicle must be cleaned and its brakes inspected at least one per day with minor cleaning. This
will be usually performed on vehicles at one of the line terminals at least once per day. Service A, B,
C consists of increasingly more comprehensive sets of inspections, part replacements and repairs.
Thus a vehicle undergoes service A every 12,500 km and every fourth A service is actually a B type
service, including additional elements of maintenance and repair. Further, every other B service is
service C, and every fourth service C is general overhaul, when the entire vehicle is dismantled and
thoroughly rebuilt.
Predictive maintenance
Predictive maintenance is based on the testing conditions of vehicle components. This is considered
to be the most economical as well as sophisticated maintenance procedure. With predictive
maintenance, when vehicles have diagnostic devices that indicate the condition of the different parts,
service is performed at prescribed intervals. Instead of replacing all parts as programmed, only those
parts that have deteriorated are replaced. Thus, service standards are maintained but at the cost of
replacing parts that are not worn out are avoided.