Towards a Zero Downtime Rail Transportation

This paper describes what Implementing a zero-downtime rail transportation system implies, in terms of challenges and, therefore, what capabilities it requires, to improve the level of reliability and help optimizing costs. Designing and building greater life-expectancy assets is certainly one way to help achieving this goal. But, it is not enough, as even the best design will lead to breakdowns. It is just a matter of time. For this reason, traditional maintenance is an essential component and cannot be simply removed from the equation. However, this does not mean it cannot be transformed in a way it can contribute to the mentioned goal. Like other areas, that are currently evolving from traditional to digital, maintenance has started to follow similar pattern. And while cost optimization and failure detection represent two major drivers, many others exist (for instance, performance as well as customer experience) which in turn, involve digitization. Despite the significant difficulty it requires, such evolution has become unavoidable for transport operators, for them to stay ahead of time and competitors.