Failure mode, effects and criticality analysis of railway rolling stock assets

In recent years, a great deal of attention has been paid to the analysis of failure modes occurring in railway infrastructure assets, e.g. bridges, rail tracks, sleepers, etc. However, there have been few attempts made by researchers on developing failure criticality assessment models for railway rolling stock. A rolling stock failure may be very costly in terms of monetary loss and/or passenger inconvenience. It may also cause delays to train services or even result in catastrophic derailment accidents. In this paper, a Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) approach is presented to identify, analyse and evaluate the causes and consequences of rolling stock failures. The most critical failure modes with respect to both reliability and economics are identified and potential protective measures are then proposed to prevent their recurrence. For the purpose of illustrating the proposed approach, the analysis model is applied to a rolling stock passenger door system. The data required for the study are collected from both the literature and the maintenance information system available in a Scottish train operating company. The results of this study can be used to plan a cost-effective preventive maintenance (PM) programme for different components of rolling stock.