Dimensioning reserve bus fleet using life cycle cost models and condition based/predictive maintenance: a case study

Abstract

The paper demonstrates the dependence of a fleet reserve of buses on the maintenance policy of the whole fleet, in particular, condition-based maintenance using a motor oil degradation analysis. The paper discusses an approach to evaluate the oil degradation and the prediction of the next value for one relevant oil variable. The methodology to evaluate the reserve fleet is based on bus availability, estimated through the mean time between failures and the mean time to repair ratios. Through the use of econometric models, it is possible to determine the most rational size of the reserve fleet.