Our Alliance for Availability

As a rail operator or rail authority, how can you ensure optimal operations and lifetime value? You need a safe and seamlessly running rail system, every day. Including all assets, processes, data, complex interactions and the people behind it.

This is why we see ourselves as a partner that brings together the specific know-how about the most diverse processes and technologies of the railway industry, along with suppliers, operators, partners and universities in an open ecosystem. We have founded the Alliance for Availability for this purpose. Our aim is to unite the expertise of all participants in order to achieve 100% system availability.

The global rail industry is faced with the growing demand for enormously complex mobility systems and understands the need to develop innovative ecosystems. Absolutely reliable performance is key. That’s why we introduced the Alliance for Availability. This open ecosystem rallies the smartest forces in the rail industry and beyond.

Working together on Siemens Mobility’s digital platforms such as Railigent combines domain expertise, operational experience, digital and data-based knowledge to achieve our common goal: 100% availability.

With the Alliance for Availability, we are proving that this is the way to go. Our Rail Service Center in Dortmund, Germany, has succeeded in implementing a digitally networked and powerful mobility solution for the RRX trains operating in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, a conurbation with tens of millions of inhabitants. The aim is to improve punctuality and ensure almost 100% availability of the 84 Siemens Mobility’s Desiro HC RRX trains in operation. The project “RRX – digital und optimal vernetzt” won the German Mobility 2020 award. The trains are equipped with sensors that continuously send status data to the maintenance depot. In addition, all work processes necessary for the maintenance and repair of the vehicles by the employees in the service center and the logistics center are completely digitalized. Forms and handover reports on paper are thus a thing of the past.

Another perfect example where Alliance for Availability has demonstrated outstanding value for railway operations is the cooperation between Siemens Mobility and Russian Railways (RZD). Back in 2009, the first Siemens high-speed trains of type Velaro RUS were put into operation on the Moscow – St. Petersburg line. With Siemens Mobility responsible for full service for this fleet over the entire life cycle (30 years), outstanding results of 12 million kilometers without delays > 5 min have been achieved to date. This would not have been possible without the innovative multifunctional depot built by Siemens in St. Petersburg which also has additive manufacturing capabilities. Convinced by the industry benchmark regarding Velaro RUS fleet availability (constant >99%), Russian Railways contracted Siemens Mobility last year to deliver an additional 13 trains, ramping up the fleet to 29 trains. Of course, Mobility Customer Services will also handle full maintenance for entire fleet over the next 30 years.  

Cooperation between Russian Railways and Siemens also includes a full-service project for 294 Desiro RUS class commuter trains. With 220 trains already in operation across the whole country from Kaliningrad to the Urals and from St. Petersburg to Sochi, Mobility Customer Services delivers highest availability for this fleet, making use of 100% train connectivity. Diagnostics messages are transmitted every 15 seconds from each EMU to the Mindsphere Application Centre in Moscow, where monitoring, deep analytics and failure prediction tasks are carried out.

Siemens / RZD cooperation is not limited to rolling stock maintenance only. A lighthouse project for full service of the Luzhskaya hump yard in the northwest of Russia stands for an unsurpassed reliability and availability track record (100%, 3 years in a row), which helps the customer to hump-process 100,000 freight cars a month using driverless shunting locomotives. 

Data analyses detect faults before they happen

Since 2015, Siemens Mobility Customer Services has been analyzing the status data that multiple units and locomotives send continuously in its data center in Munich. A high-caliber team of data analysts, computer scientists, engineers and other scientists visualizes the data and develops algorithms that predict a possible failure based on mileage or within a defined time frame. In this way unnecessary downtimes can be avoided, and maintenance tasks can be planned precisely before errors actually occur.

Our data center was the first in the railway industry to follow this Smart Prediction approach. The results are incorporated into predictive maintenance, which we have been applying successfully for many years in cooperation with railway operators in the UK, Russia, Spain and other countries. The methods are also suitable for monitoring the infrastructure. The goal is always 100% availability.

In addition to customers and suppliers in the railway industry, highly specialized companies such as the roller bearing manufacturer SKF, Knorr Bremse, voestalpine signaling, Strukton Rail and other suppliers of components for vehicle, line and train safety are working together in the Alliance for Availability. The network, based on the Railigent Application Suite, is open and permanently processes and analyses the operating data of the operators so as to react to disruptive factors as quickly as possible.

What fundamental factors determine availability and punctuality? Railway operation is based on timetables, track occupancy in stations and on closely timed routes, as well as route- and time-dependent train configurations. In addition, there are further variable factors such as the weather and its effects, from trees falling in a storm to iced-up overhead contact lines, switches and vehicles, (that can result in delays) if countermeasures are not taken in time. Major events and disruptions due to line construction measures can be counteracted if additional trains are provided to avoid delays.

For example, our network produces and visualizes analyses for the management of vehicle and infrastructure operators, makes recommendations to the railway company's control centers and gives instructions to maintenance staff before the train reaches the depot. It also provides real-time information for passengers and freight customers.

Our Alliance for Availability is constantly growing and developing its expertise for fail-safe, reliable and punctual rail transport - for the benefit of customers, passengers and freight shippers. And last but not least, we use the knowledge gained in operations to improve existing structures and to develop new vehicles and infrastructure.

 We will soon give you interesting insights about our partner management within this Alliance.

So stay tuned!

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