muller877
Senior Member
To put it back into the TTC's perspective....
There are numerous different maintenance crews. Cleaning. Running repairs. Body men. Mechanical. Electrical. All do different jobs, and not all need to have the same shifts. Cleaning and running repairs are doing mostly at night, but the body men may only need to be on duty during the day, as their jobs are more intensive and require more time, effort and equipment to do.
In transit there is also almost zero capability for sourcing extra equipment if needed on a day-by-day basis, and an absolutely zero capability when it comes to the streetcars and subways. Thus, you need to make sure that your spares ratio is high enough to cover all potential situations - not just vehicles that break down on a day-to-day basis, but also for recalls and warranty work, fitting out of new and updated systems, to name but two.
Finally, what is the average amount of time that your vehicles are on the road? From what I recall from my friends in the logistics industry, the average time on the road for each truck is something like 5 and a half hours per day, 5 days a week. A transit vehicle averages far more time in service - for the TTC's bus fleet, it's something like 13 hours a day, 6 days a week. Streetcars are something similar. That's a lot of wear-and-tear not just on the engine and transmission, but suspension and steering components, doors and windows, HVAC, etc.
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
For supplies transit is very similar to most industries other than trucks and autos. And most firms have enough parts in inventory for both minor repairs to major repairs to avoid any lost time. Think of all the types of fleets that are out there. From planes to trains to industrial machinery. But there is consistency in each fleet..the larger your fleet the lower the % of inventory.
Most of the vehicles are used for 12 hours a day. But they are idled for around 1/2 of that (I would presume similar to transit...where you idle at stops). 12 hours gives you enough time to do almost any repair if you plan ahead...including body work. For engine work we normally remove the whole engine and replace it with a spare if it is going to take too long.
If you want difficult maintenance schedules the worst I've every seen is out in Fort Mac. During winter the vehicles are on 24/7 to prevent freezing. I'd dread to see that schedule. But I know their shut-down due to the fires allowed them to catch up on the repairs. They were deferring the large maintenance due to cost constraints for a year plus and it allowed them to catch up (almost sounds familiar to transit!)