When upgrading rail infrastructure ROI‐based decisions partly rely on the demonstration of immediate improvements from those upgrades to the system. The rail industry is beginning to suffer in some areas from diminishing ROI from improving parts of its infrastructure. To inform decisions and help justify large expenditures, modelling needs to be done to detect the likely improvement to dependent systems as well as the primary system. Sydney Trains (ST) has undertaken a pilot study to demonstrate how modelling can be used to propagate performance changes made in one sub‐system into its dependent neighbors. The trial examines how to model the effect of improvements to the air dryer on the reliability and lifecycle of pneumatic systems of the Tangara train which utilize the air: the doors and brakes. The very detailed level model in this case helps provide evidence of improved reliability in these dependent systems can then be used to further justify the ROI and to assist in assessing the safety of the system on an ongoing basis.
Infrastructure refers to the fundamental facilities and systems serving a country, city, or area, including the services and facilities necessary for its economy to function. Infrastructure systems typically consist of interrelated constituent systems forming what is known as system of systems (SoS). Infrastructure systems present numerous challenges throughout their lifecycles. This paper addresses one of these challenges that is presented during operation, when managers need to report 'how well' the system is performing and finding ways to address the consequences of unexpected events that often degrade the intended performance. This state of system 'wellbeing' will be referred as system integrity (SI). When applied to infrastructure systems this paper proposes a model suggesting that system integrity is a combination of operational performance, safety and resilience which become the set of criteria to assess SI. Each of these three factors is assessed by considering their specific 'key performance indicators' (KPI): Operational KPIs (KO), Safety KPIs (KS) and Resilience KPIs (KR). KOs could include KPIs for quality of service, reliability, availability, maintainability and cost; KSs could include KPIs for number and severity of accidents; and KRs could include KPIs for level of disruption and time for recovery to acceptable levels.
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