Performance degradation based reliability prediction method for CTCS on-board equipment

With the rapid development of China Railway High-speed (CRH), the safety issue becomes the top priority to be considered. If there are any potential safety or reliability problems during the train operation, it may cause accidents, even leading to disastrous consequences. Assessment and prediction on the reliability of train control system are the key preconditions of timely detection and confirmation of these potential risk factors, as well as the treatment of these accidents. Firstly, the fault data was analyzed and classified. Time series analysis was used to predict failure rates of each failure type of Chinese train control system (CTCS) on-board equipment, and regression analysis was used to predict the reliability of whole CTCS on-board equipment. Then a comparison was made between the predicted data and the real failure data. At last, the severity of failures was calculated and reliability of on-board equipment was evaluated by using failure mode effects and criticality analysis (FMECA). The results show that the predicted value of failure rate fits actual value well, and is able to evaluate on-board equipment's reliability with FMECA in future time.