Metro St. Louis: Predictive Monitoring Pilot for Vehicle Maintenance

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See how Metro St. Louis worked with the Labs to test a pioneering predictive analytics. In St. Louis, regional passengers hopping a bus to work know they can rely on one of the best run, interconnected transit systems in the United States. Metro St. Louis owns and operates the region's public transportation, a network that includes MetroBus, MetroLink (light rail), and Call-A-Ride (vans for the disabled). It also transports sightseers on its trams to the top of the city's landmark Gateway Arch, on Mississippi riverboats, and manages the St. Louis Downtown Airport.

The sophisticated regional system, which carried 46 million passengers in the 2004 fiscal year, is recognized for its outstanding maintenance operation, servicing a fleet of more than 600 vehicles. For MetroBus, which provides rides for the majority of the system's riders, those figures translate into over 100,000 commuters a day who count on a fleet of 457 buses. Because passengers know they can depend on Metro St. Louis service, the transit system has lived up to its ambitious mission statement: To enable "…regional economic development through excellence in transportation."

Reliability is the lifeblood of Metro St. Louis. Although the transit system was known for its outstanding maintenance operation, it wanted to find ways to reduce costs while upholding its reputation for excellence. The system had an unusual challenge: Maintenance schedules were too aggressive, resulting in unnecessary spending. Metro St. Louis's goal was to find the "sweet spot"—spend less on costly maintenance that forced vehicles to stand idle, while extending the life of its major assets, the buses. The transit system was searching for an innovative solution that would allow it to achieve an even higher level of performance. They found the answer in Accenture's Technology Labs, which helped build a pioneering system that could transform the future of equipment maintenance by identifying when individual vehicles required maintenance.

In January, 2005, Metro St. Louis entered into an agreement with Accenture to test a system known as Predictive Monitoring. Developed in conjunction with the Accenture Technology Labs, and using software from Smart Signal, Predictive Monitoring deploys sensors to electronically transmit information about vehicle problems so that mechanics can fix them before there is a breakdown and so they can optimize maintenance schedules for each bus in the fleet. Although Predictive Monitoring had been successfully used in the electrical utility, airline, and chemical industries, this was the first time it was applied to public transit. During a months-long pilot project, Metro St. Louis would test the emerging technology's ability to improve bus fleet management.

Metro St. Louis chose to work with Accenture because of its extensive research and experience with sensor applications and data analytics. For over 20 years, Accenture's Technology Labs have been turning technology innovation into business results that enable high performance. Based on a previous project for Metro St. Louis, Accenture also had demonstrated its deep industry and business process knowledge, as well as a skill at managing complex implementations.

For the pilot project, Accenture installed sensors on 20 buses to gather engine and transmission operating data, which then was stored in collection boxes on each bus. That information was relayed electronically to computers in the Accenture Technology Labs where sophisticated statistical analytics software created a snapshot of each bus and compared its operating data to an analytic model of the bus's "normal" behavior. If a problem was identified, maintenance workers at Metro St. Louis would receive alerts via e-mail, pages or a website. Because the sensor-based system is more accurate, it can detect deviations and operating anomalies in engines and transmissions before they become costly problems. And, by red-flagging problems before there is failure, repairs can be scheduled to minimize the impact on bus service.

Metro St. Louis' pioneering experiment already has delivered results that demonstrate the system's potential. For example, during the pilot project it detected overheating in the hydraulic retarder, part of the bus's transmission system, allowing maintenance personnel to fix the problem before it escalated into an expensive transmission repair. Predictive Monitoring has provided another payoff: It allows Metro St. Louis to extend the life of its buses by customizing a maintenance schedule for each vehicle.

Not only does this enable the transit system to perform maintenance only when needed, but also it reduces the overall cost of ownership. For example, the system can be used to identify a bus's fuel inefficiency before it becomes too significant—then Metro St. Louis could tune-up the vehicle to restore fuel efficiency. While most businesses are focused on using data to better understand the past, Predictive Monitoring shifts that focus, allowing Metro St. Louis to look into the future by capturing data in real time so that it can take preemptive action.

Metro St. Louis will decide whether to install the advanced technology on its entire bus fleet—a move that could produce significant net savings by extending the life of its buses, optimizing maintenance schedules, and identifying fuel inefficiencies. Meanwhile, the transit system already has demonstrated its commitment to high performance by making two critical decisions that Accenture has identified as key traits of high-performance businesses: It is using information technology to create and act on insights in real time. And, it has achieved extended mastery through partnering in areas outside their core competencies.

By teaming with Accenture, Metro St. Louis is positioning itself as a 21st century leader in public transit. "We're a progressive transit organization committed to enhancing passenger convenience," says Dianne Williams, director of communications for Metro St. Louis. "While our maintenance facilities are recognized to be among the best in the country, there is always room for improvement. We are enthusiastic about the pilot project's early results."