Scheduling of Transit Bus Maintenance

The study of current practice in bus maintenance has revealed that preventive maintenance schedules are initially based upon past experience, and are reviewed and adjusted according to the feedback regarding the cost of maintenance and the reliability of performance of a bus fleet. Maintenance management would normally institute changes in the maintenance periods and in the procedures followed, in an attempt to shift the system towards a better balance between the cost of maintenance and the reliability of service. The method proposed in this research takes a formal approach towards the determination of bus maintenance schedules. A cost function which takes into account the sum of the cost of periodical preventive maintenance and the cost of failures and unscheduled repairs has been developed. A computer method is used to derive the least-cost maintenance schedule, and an example is given to demonstrate the use of the method.