What is RAMS?

RAMS stands for Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety, with the definition below,

• • Reliability: ability to perform as required, without failure, for a given time interval, under given conditions. It is also considered as to be qualitative or quantitative
  • Availability: ability of an item to be in a state to perform a required function under given conditions at a given instant of time or over a given time interval, assuming that the required external resources are provided
  • Maintainability: ability of an item under given conditions of use, to be retained in or restored to, a state in which it can perform a required function, when maintenance is performed under given conditions and using stated procedures and resources
  • Safety: freedom from unacceptable risk

Why is RAMS important?

RAMS process is a comprehensive framework used to ensure that railway systems are safe, reliable, and efficient throughout their lifecycle. It involves various analyses and assessments to mitigate potential hazards, and helps in reducing maintenance costs, ensuring high-quality service, and demonstrating the safety and reliability of the system. The most important and essential internation standards are EN50126, EN50128 (EN 50716), EN 50129.

In order to ensure an optimum maintainability of the infrastructure or rolling stock and its components the following fundamental conditions are essential:

• • proven design
  • the use of already proven technology
  • the easy access to repair components
  • inspections and overhaul pushed at their maximum
  • easy installation and easy replacement during the repair process in order to reduce downtime
  • innovation must be considered, either to increase or maintain quality or to reduce costs
    

In addition to these principles, it is advisable to introduce a procedure along the V-model in accordance with EN 50126.

All steps of the V-model are to be coordinated between the contractor and the client. The continuous communication between the parties includes a validation for each step by the customer.