Transportation Systems: Managing Performance through Advanced Maintenance Engineering

This book explores the application of breakthrough technologies to improve transportation performance. Transportation systems represent the “blood vessels” of a society, in which people and goods travel. They also influence people’s lives and affect the liveability and sustainability of our cities. The book shows how emergent technologies are able to monitor the condition of the structure in real time in order to schedule the right moment for maintenance activities an so reduce the disturbance to users.

This book is a valuable resource for those involved in research and development in this field. Part I discusses the context of transportation systems, highlighting the major issues and challenges, the importance of understating human factors that could affect the maintenance operations and the main goals in terms of safety standards. Part II focuses on process-oriented innovations in transportation systems; this section stresses the importance of including design parameters in the planning, offering a comparison between risk-based and condition-based maintenance and, lastly, showing applications of emergent technologies. Part III goes on to reflect on the technical-oriented innovations, discussing the importance of studying the physical phenomena that are behind transportation system failures and problems. It then introduces the general trend of collecting and analyzing big data using real-world cases to evaluate the positive and negative aspects of adopting extensive smart sensors for gathering information on the health of the assets. The last part (IV) explores cultural and behavioural changes, and new knowledge management methods, proposing novel forms of maintenance and vocational training, and introduces the need for radical new visions in transportation for managing unexpected events.

The continuous evolution of maintenance fields suggests that this compendium of “state-of-the-art” applications will not be the only one; the authors are planning a collection of cutting-edge examples of transportation systems that can assist researchers and practitioners as well as students in the process of understanding the complex and multidisciplinary environment of maintenance engineering applied to the transport sector.

Dr. Sarbjeet Singh is Associate Professor and Head at the Mechanical Engineering Department, Government College of Engineering & Technology (University of Jammu), India. He is PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, India and Post Doctorate from Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden. Dr Sarbjeet is currently working at Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden. His expertise and research interests are in the fields of Decision support System, maintenance engineering, human reliability, human factors and the application and utilization of new technologies to maintenance and safety topics.

Dr. Alberto Martinetti is Assistant Professor in Maintenance Engineering at the University of Twente, Department of Design, Production and Management, Faculty of Engineering Technology. He is the Coordinator of the Maintenance Engineering and Operations (MEO) Specialization in Mechanical Engineering and Chairman of the Maintenance Research Day in the Netherlands and Belgium. He has worked for the Polytechnic of Turin and for the University of Turin. He holds a Master’s degree in Geo-resources and Geo-technologies Engineering and obtained his PhD at Polytechnic of Turin in 2013. His areas of expertise and research interest are maintenance engineering, occupational safety & health, risk analysis, human factors and the application and utilization of new technologies to maintenance and safety topics.

 Dr. Arnab Majumdar is Lloyds Register Foundation (LRF) Reader in Transport Risk Management and the Director of the Transport Risk Management Centre (TRMC) at the Centre for Transport Studies, Imperial College London. He obtained his PhD from the same college in 2003. Dr Majumdar has more than 20 years’ research experience in air transport, especially in the investigation of international problems in Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Air Traffic Control (ATC). Since 2010 he has expanded his research interests to other modes of transport, such as railways and helicopter operations, and focuses on the human and organizational aspects of safety and risk, e.g. safety culture, human reliability analysis. He has worked closely with academic and industrial partners, e.g. Netherlands Railways, First Group, Abellio Holdings and Beijing Metro in the railways domain.

Prof. Dr. Leo A.M. van Dongen has worked for the Netherlands Railways (NS) for over 30 years. He is Chief Technology Officer (CTO), responsible for the Asset Management of the rolling stock fleet, workshops and maintenance equipment. Since 2010, he has been a part-time Professor of Maintenance Engineering at the University of Twente’s Department of Design, Production and Management, in the Faculty of Engineering Technology. He obtained his PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology. At DAF Trucks he was active in the development of diesel engines. During his career at NS, he has focused mainly on technological functions. In addition to his work at NS he promotes the academic development of the profession and encourages further research into maintenance processes: from design methodologies for capital goods to the development of associated maintenance concepts, not only for the initial investment, but also for the management during the entire life-cycle.