IMPROVING THE RESPONSE TIME FOR THE CORRECTIVE MAINTENANCE OF RAIL INFRASTRUCTURE: A CASE STUDY OF THE WESTERN CAPE PASSENGER RAIL NETWORK

Response time for repairing rail infrastructure failures remains a challenge in the South African rail industry. The 'mean time to return' metric consists of mean time to respond and mean time to repair. This article investigates the mean time to respond for signalling infrastructure at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) in the Western Cape, and introduces a strategy to reduce downtime. The results show that the time of occurrence, the location, and the nature of incidents, as well as the location of maintenance personnel, influence the time to respond. A model is developed to assist with improved decision-making.