A city transit operator watched fleet maintenance costs spiral with no clear cause. We came in, found the root problem within weeks, and redesigned how they manage every vehicle in the fleet.
A city transit operator managed a fleet of several hundred buses. Maintenance costs had been climbing for three years. Management tried new suppliers, new schedules, and new supervisors. Nothing worked. The problem kept growing.
The operator needed someone to find the root cause, not another band-aid. We were brought in to audit the entire maintenance system: how work was scheduled, how parts were ordered, how failures were recorded, and how decisions were made.
We found the problem in the data: maintenance was being scheduled by calendar date, not by actual vehicle condition. Buses that needed early attention were waiting. Buses that did not need work were being opened up. Parts were being replaced on guesswork. Labor hours were being spent on the wrong vehicles.
The result: a new maintenance system built on actual vehicle condition, usage patterns, and failure history. Costs dropped. Downtime dropped. And the operator had a system it could run without us.
Maintenance costs had climbed for three years. Management tried new suppliers, new schedules, and new supervisors. Nothing stopped the bleeding. Every month the numbers got worse.
No one had audited the actual system: how work orders were created, how parts were allocated, or how mechanics decided what to fix. Decisions were made on habit, not on evidence.
We audited six months of maintenance records, parts invoices, and work orders. The pattern was clear: buses were being serviced on fixed calendar intervals regardless of condition.
Some vehicles were being over-serviced. Others were being under-serviced until they failed on the road. Parts inventory was being driven by supplier deals, not by actual failure rates.
The operator received a condition-based maintenance system: service when the data says service, not when the calendar says so. Parts ordering was tied to actual failure patterns. And every mechanic had clear criteria for what to check and when.
Costs dropped within the first quarter. Breakdowns fell. And the operator had a system it could manage, measure, and improve on its own.
The same five stages we run on every engagement, applied here. Hover or tap a stage to see what it covered.
Every item below was written to be used by the mechanics who fix the buses and the managers who run the depot, not to sit in a file.
What this engagement put in place, and the evidence base behind the team that delivered it.
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