Data-driven onboard diagnostics technology can predict problems in Metro Trains’ fleet and asset management, and thereby deal with the challenges arising from rising passenger demand and higher performance targets, according to Neal Lawson, the operator’s deputy CEO.
Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM) has been operating Melbourne’s passenger rail network since 2009 under the (soon to expire) MR3 franchise agreement with the state government.
The new MR4 agreement that the operator was recently awarded (to take effect on November 30) has established tougher performance targets, including monthly punctuality targets requiring 92 per cent (up from 88 per cent) of trains to run within 4 mins and 59 secs of their scheduled arrival time, and a new delivery target for timetable services of 98.5 per cent.
Lawson, who spoke at the AusRAIL conference last Wednesday, said that while MTM had effectively responded to the demands of patronage growth over the last 8 years, the expected increases in this demand over the next 10 years – almost 100 per cent on some lines – along with disruptions caused by massive government investment programmes to keep up with this growth, will place greater pressures on the operator to deliver high-performing passenger services on time.
“For the world’s most liveable city, public transport is going to be the lifeblood that keeps it there. Therefore, the transport system needs to stay safe and reliable under ever-increasing load pressure,” Lawson told the audience. “And asset management and user-data and moving from a reactive to a predictive maintenance regime is going to be absolutely critical to keep the people of Melbourne moving.”
Lawson indicated that improvements in infrastructure and rolling stock performance had been the “key driver” in providing the higher service reliability performances MTM has been delivering over the last couple of years. However, the tougher performance targets, and the disruptions that will be caused by the development of capacity and capital programmes, mean that data-driven technological change will be the best way to keep up with rapid transformations and changing conditions.
“It is fortunate that technology and data information is improving and growing at such an exponential rate, because I believe that it is the absolute breakthrough and what we’re going to need to harness really quickly to conform to these higher targets through the next seven years,” he said.
It is above all the installation of onboard diagnostics systems on new and existing rolling stock, Lawson emphasised, that would provide the means towards realising MTM’s future performance goals.
Not only will the new fleet of high-capacity trains (to be introduced by 2019) feature onboard diagnostics systems from the get-go, but the some of the currently existing and aging rolling stock will be targeted with the programme as well. This latter strategy will be key, Lawson said, towards achieving the reliability growth and performance improvements the operator seeks.
Lawson drew a distinction between what he considered the “reactive” maintenance regime of the previous MR3 era and MTM’s new “predictive” approach, characterised above all by the use of this data-driven technology.
“Onboard diagnostics forms a key part of asset management strategy going forward as we move from more reactive to more proactive forms of maintenance, where the data is used to inform immediate maintenance responses, or alarms,” he said.
“But far more importantly, we can use that data to understand the asset, and predict degradation rates to be able to make periodic maintenance more appropriate to the failure mode,” he told the conference audience.
This allows “condition-based” monitoring of rolling stock, Lawson said, where data provides enough information to enable trains to receive maintenance before they fail while out on the track and fixed quickly – maximising availability and minimising downtime.
Lawson emphasised that the success of the programme would also rest on the ability of the diagnostics system to “leverage” the data already existing on trains, gathered, for instance, on older forms of event-recording “black boxes”.
“As previous speakers have said, the data is only as good as the tools and the processing that you have to turn it into useful information,” Lawson said.
“So if your infrastructure, your technology infrastructure, and your data information management plan doesn’t support what you want to do in an asset management sense, then it’s not going to succeed. The onboard diagnostics strategy is therefore heavily linked to the technology strategy.”
Once captured, organised, and analysed, data will used in situations beyond day-to-day rolling stock maintenance, including timetable analysis and optimisation and the investigation of track defects through box vibration detection, with real-time data enabling teams to prevent these defects from deteriorating to critical levels.
Lawson came to the end of his presentation by outlining case studies that he said proved the data-driven technology could reduce service failures, save costs, reduce repair times, improve timetabling and enable better safety investigations – all ways to help meet the challenges of MTM faces over the next 7 years of its fresh contract.
“And the onboard diagnostics tool – which is only one of our planned improvements – it has been strongly proven that is does work, that it does produce benefits,” he concluded.
“It’s an amazing use of technology and available data, and, ultimately, drives the improvements we will need to satisfy our passengers, which is, after all, what we’re all here to do.”