Media centre

Tuesday 25 May 2010

MAINTENANCE PROJECT SIGNALS BETTER RELIABILITY

Region & Route:

National

A scheme that takes a more tailored approach to the way Network Rail maintains signalling systems is helping to push reliability to ever higher levels.

Network Rail’s reliability centred maintenance of signalling equipment (ROSE) programme focuses on developing bespoke maintenance regimes for signalling assets, enabling engineers to direct resources more effectively to prevent asset failures and reduce disruption.

The programme has now passed a major milestone and has been rolled out to more than 100,000 signalling assets – around 40% of the total number.

The programme works by identifying the right maintenance for individual assets that is appropriate to their usage, environment and condition. It enables maintenance teams to make better value out of their resources by working more effectively when they have access to the tracks thereby keeping line closures to a minimum.

Traditionally, signalling maintenance has taken a ‘one size fits all approach’ with assets being maintained on the same cycle regardless of usage, location or age. The project uses the concept of reliability centred maintenance developed in the aviation industry and now accepted as best practice in other industries including nuclear and petrochemical.

Steve Featherstone, Network Rail’s maintenance director said: “Big gains are being made by working smarter in the way we do maintenance. Using the experience and knowledge of our engineers to develop maintenance regimes which focus on reducing and removing the causes of failures saves time and frees up resources that can put to more effective use.”