Abstract
This study was initiated with the primary purpose of determining factors that affect the reliability of traction substations at the South African Railways. The South African Railways is one of the operating divisions of the South African Transport Services. The South African Transport Services annual results revealed that the South African Railways has been struggling to achieve its volume targets. The top risks that are in the South African Transport Services annual results are volume growth, human resources, operational, productivity, and efficiency. The identification of these risks triggered the evaluation of traction substations performance to determine their contribution towards the identified risks. All traction substations are under the control of Rail Network which is one of the South African Railways subdivisions which focuses on optimizing maintenance, infrastructure development through capitalized projects. The weekly substation availability report showed that some of these traction substations are failing. ..
M.Phil. (Engineering Management)