Central advice system for fleet management and operations [electric railways]

For modern complex trains, safety, availability and life cycle costs are directly related to the efficiency in fault diagnosis throughout the life-cycle. The Central Advice System described in this paper should significantly improve the diagnosis efficiency during service and maintenance. Improved efficiency in operational diagnosis comprises: significant increase in the level of diagnosis automation; significant increase in the coverage of faults; significant increase in the accuracy of diagnosis by tuning the relations between service and diagnostic alarms, tests and actions; and ensuring guaranteed response times for critical on-line diagnosis situations. The proposed solution to this complex decision-making process, Central Advice System, consists of two tools: the Operational Diagnosis Tool (ODT) that provides a real-time, on-line diagnosis to support drivers, maintenance staff and fleet managers; and the Support Function Tool (SFT) that supports the off-line development and maintenance of the domain knowledge and allows the administrator to verify the coverage and accuracy of the on-line diagnosis.