Case Studies

Pennsylvania Station, MTA Long Island Rail Road
Long Island, New York

Situation
In July 1994, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) opened the refurbished Pennsylvania Station to the public. In addition to rehabilitating the architecture of the station, new escalators, HVAC, and electrical systems were installed. The entire Pennsylvania Concourse Level Improvement Project, which began in the early 1980's, cost $190 million.

To help protect their investment, which includes a 1,000-ton chiller plant, seven hydraulic elevators, 400kw emergency generator plant, 15 escalators, 124 air curtains, 28 air handling units, closed-circuit televisions (CCTVs), communications systems, concession utilities, etc., the LIRR sought out and purchased a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS).

Challenges
Pennsylvania Station is the primary destination for LIRR, the busiest commuter railroad in North America. It is also a major hub for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit (NJT). With such a critical transportation center, it is essential that every piece of equipment in the station has the maximum uptime possible.

Because LIRR, Amtrak, and NJT share personnel and occupy common areas of the station, LIRR and Amtrak made a decision to share the same CMMS database. Since the database already contained a PM procedures library, adding Amtrak-owned elevators, escalators, HVAC, Life Safety, and liability protection procedures was a simple matter of applying existing procedures to the new equipment.

The Gannett Fleming team worked closely with LIRR personnel to ensure that equipment uptime was maximized to make sure that the trains operated on time at all times.

Solution
Gannett Fleming Team members were hired to assist the LIRR in maximizing the life cycle of their capital investment through the generation of weekly preventive maintenance (PM) work orders using Saber™, Gannett Fleming’s CMMS, and incorporating Oculus Network™, a design solution that connects devices in the field to an alarm and CMMS database.

Typically, it takes a few years for a facility with a new CMMS system to produce PM work orders for the installed equipment. Remarkably after only five months, Gannett Fleming Team members working with LIRR operations staff were able to track 52 percent (1,500 out of 2,880) of its man-hours. Tracking 52 percent of man-hours means that of the eight hours available for maintenance in any given day, 4.2 hours are tracked. This is considered good by industry standards.

More than 1,500 hours of work orders each month are processed with an array of management reports on the maintenance activity. Predefined work descriptions for routine tasks such as tunnel inspections and escalator repairs are used to create work orders. This saves time and money by eliminating the inefficient task of repeatedly typing common work descriptions. Creating detailed PM and predefined work descriptions reduces the time required in managing efforts as the procedures already contain the “Special Instructions” required to complete the task.

To make sure contractors complete work as per their agreement, both PM and repair maintenance work orders are generated from the system detailing the work the contractor is completing. These work orders are issued directly to the contractor and are required to be completed and returned to the staff engineer, so that the equipment owned by the LIRR will have a complete maintenance history.

Once the maintenance plan was completed for the station areas, it was expanded to include DC switches, compressed air, electrical feeders, third rail, tunnels, and platform equipment. The maintenance plan applied to the track systems helps this hub function with a minimum of interruptions to the riding public.

As part of the same effort, a hand-held rounds device was implemented with the goal of liability protection. The hand-held device contained a bar code reader. When used in conjunction with a bar code label on the equipment, it created a date time stamp of when an inspection occurred. This makes sure that both LIRR and Amtrak could not be found negligent on the grounds of not performing rounds.