A methodologic approach to evaluate service dependability of a high-speed railway line

Reliability and quality analyses play an important role in defining the structural and operative characteristics of the system and in setting reliability and maintainability specifications, which could assure that service quality requirements will be met. The paper illustrates a methodology for the prediction of service quality of a high-speed railway system as a function of reliability and maintainability of subsystems forming transit system, failure recovery policy of failed subsystems and degraded conditions traffic management policy, quantifying delay trip acceptable by passengers. A specific model to evaluate System Service Dependability for each transit system has been developed for different values of acceptable delay. The Rome-Naples line of Italian high-speed Railway System and its features have been analysed. The proposed methodology can be useful also for the management of maintenance optimization in railway power systems.