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Abstract
Rolling stock has a limited life span during which it can provide efficient service. Faced with
today’s budget constraints and economic slowdown, all railroad or transit operators will
eventually face the following questions: What is the most suitable equipment available to
replace the existing equipment for the particular service? What is the most economic way of
procuring the required fleet?
To answer those questions, various railroad agencies and transit operators used diversified
measures such as capacity demanded by the ridership forecast, performance afforded by the
proposed equipment, or the operating and capital cost associated with certain rolling stock
configurations. However, comprehensive analyses based on all three factors mentioned above
are rare, even though it is agreed that all those factors affect railroad services simultaneously
and they all should be considered in the rolling stock planning process.
To fill the gap, this paper describes a comprehensive approach to select long-term rolling
stock for commuter services. This approach not only considers the performance of the proposed
equipment but also evaluates the life cycle costs of the proposed fleet configuration. A case
study of rolling stock planning for a commuter rail service is included to demonstrate the
practical application of the suggested approach. Combining the train performance simulation
(TPS) and life cycle cost (LCC) analysis, the proposed approach derives an optimal balance
between service costs and service quality. Moreover, by incorporating the timing of the new
equipment purchases into the life cycle cost, this approach further maximizes the return on
capital investment for transit agencies.