A practical approach to reliability data collection and analysis in support of the rail industry

Since 1990 BAeSEMA have been undertaking maintenance data collection and plant reliability analyses to support HSE regulatory requirements, safety justification and economic targets. The objective of this paper is to describe a practical approach to data collection and analysis to support the Railway Industry which will utilise existing systems and minimise the demand for extra work. To achieve this the paper: discusses the nature of reliability data, describes a practical approach to reliability data collection, discusses the reliability analysis requirement, describes selected analysis methods and reasons for their selection and illustrates the methods with examples and case studies.