Reliability centered maintenance: A solution to optimise mass transit system cost effectiveness

The design of mass transit systems must take into account cost effectiveness concept, in order to maximise system effectiveness (functional performances, dependability and other technical parameters) and to reduce system life cycle cost. As far as maintenance aspects are concerned, the application of Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) principles plays a fundamental role for both reducing Operations and Support (O&S) cost and maintaining a high level in system effectiveness. In this paper the authors present an approach based on Stochastic Petri Nets, able to give the designer all the significant measures needed in the RCM analysis, when a predefined cost effectiveness target has to be reached.