State of the art in railway maintenance management: planning systems and their application in Europe

Infrastructure managers increasingly have to deliver to defined performance levels (e.g. reliability and life cycle costs), as a result of increasing pressures from governments and transport operators. Systematic analysis of the long-term performance and cost impacts of design and maintenance decisions is therefore becoming a 'part of the game'. Estimation tools are gradually becoming available, but their application in practice is still scarce. A significant problem is the quality of underlying database systems. Moreover, the variation in starting points and calculation methods is large. It is suggested to establish a forum for maintenance engineering in the European railways.