A Project Management Framework for the Modernisation of Passenger Railway Depots in Developing Countries

Passenger railway organisations in developing countries have been operating old rolling stock for decades. With the advancement and complexity of modern technology, these organisations are required to renew their fleet. However, there are no guidelines that can help these organisations to implement a disruptive technological transition from old, dilapidated depots to the desired state that can support new technology in new rolling stock fleets. In this paper a project management framework is developed for modernising passenger railway depots to support the new rolling stock fleet and realise efficiency gains. To realise efficiency gains, the railway depots are viewed as large technical systems. Data was collected by conducting a systematic literature review and interviews with subject matter experts from industry. The project environment for railway depots is multidisciplinary hence the framework is developed to be robust for accommodating different project landscapes. Due to the complexity of railway systems, the framework offers the necessary flexibility to accommodate different project dynamics. The feedback mechanism in the framework ensures project flexibility without compromising on control. The goal of modernisation is to achieve sustainability through several objectives, namely supportability, interoperability, systems performance improvement, maintenance optimisation and productivity improvement. These objectives are integrated in a customised work breakdown structure which forms part of the framework and which facilitates concurrent execution of projects by different teams in a closely coordinated decentralised framework. With the developed project management framework, the process of modernisation becomes integrated, the delivery performance is improved and lean methodologies are easily implemented thereby improving the competitiveness of the modernisation plan.