Towards Establishing an Integrated Health Index for Rail Rolling Stock

In recent years, the concept of asset life extension has become popular in lieu of other end-of-life management strategies, such as replacement or decommissioning of assets. This paper identifies a health index as key contributor during life extension decisions and discusses the application of health indices in various industries. It further discusses the building blocks that need to be considered in the development of a health index, and demonstrates the development of a conceptual health index for rail rolling stock for the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa. It concludes with a discussion how the conceptual health index can be applied, and the future work which can performed to improve the health index.