Q&A: What Are Fleet Repair Cost Analyses, and Why Do I Need One?

Managing railcar repairs means understanding where costs come from and finding opportunities to reduce unnecessary expenses. A fleet-wide repair cost analysis helps managers uncover trends, identify recurring issues, and take proactive steps to optimize maintenance and minimize unnecessary expenses. In this blog, we chat with Gregg Phillips, TransmetriQ Product Manager and a 20-year rail industry veteran and data scientist.

Phillips breaks down what fleet repair cost analyses are, why they matter, and how these reports empower fleet managers to make informed, data-driven decisions. Whether you have an established maintenance strategy or are looking to build one, these insights will help you take control of repair costs and keep your fleet running efficiently.

• Q: What are repair cost analyses? 
• A: Across the industry, we’re seeing a desire to reduce costs, especially unnecessary ones. People usually understand the value of auditing individual railcar repair invoices, which often brings to light opportunities to take exception and reject invoices. That’s an immediate impact on costs. But, analyzing costs at the fleet level, it’s important to review trends and cost drivers overall. For example:

What repairs are we seeing most often, and is that normal compared to average?

Are we seeing more repairs for cars on a certain lease or cars traveling in a certain region? If so, why? I helped a shipper recently who had way more coupler repair charges than average. For example, one shipper flagged an unusually high volume of coupler repair charges compared to industry averages. By sharing these insights with the handling carrier, they collaborated to reduce coupling speeds. The carrier welcomed the recommendations and implemented the change—resulting in noticeably fewer broken‐coupler incidents.

Or, are you seeing repeat repairs on certain components? If so, is it because those components are breaking more than the same components from another manufacturer?  With that knowledge, a fleet manager who purchases their own components can take action to say they want X components used instead of Y components.

Those are just a few situations, but assessing this kind of information gives a fleet manager the information they need to identify concerns and reduce spend.

• Q: Do most fleet managers perform these analyses already?
• A: Some do, some don’t. Not everyone wants to get eyeball deep in railcar repair and lease data like I do. For seasoned fleet managers, a lot of this is standard. For smaller and newer-to-rail entities, this can be really in the weeds. Fleet and repair management for many car owners are parts of the organization that tend to run very lean. There may not always be time to do a lot of thoughtful analysis on data, and that’s assuming that you can get your hands on the data and manage it over time to be able to look at what it can tell you.
  
  
• Q: What advice do you have for those newer entities that aren’t already doing these analyses?  
• A: Establishing a baseline is critical, even just understanding your average repair cost per car and per mile to start. You can grow from there. Some of these analyses require a thorough understanding of rail data, which can be a beast. That’s the reason a lot of fleet managers come to us. To get deeper insights, you really need to look at fleet size, age, leases, repairs, movements, and more together. Assembling even that can be a lift. Then consider the difficulty of keeping data updated when the industry is constantly working, adding more data to the picture. 
  
  Aside from establishing a baseline, wheelsets usually account for more than half of repair costs. If it feels more digestible to start with one topic, wheelsets are usually where I direct folks to look first. We often do reports for companies covering what I like to call your wheelset control ratio — how many of your wheel repairs are you doing at contract shops versus higher-cost running repairs?  If you have the ability to save money on parts or labor by having wheelsets changed at your own sites or through contract crews, this is often a place where you can find a lot of leverage.
  
  
• Q: What’s the most interesting thing you’ve found through a repair cost analysis?
• A: Phew…I’ve been looking at railcar repair data for twenty-some years. There’s been a lot. One of my reports called out an outlier in repair data for a sand shipper. They saw repeated (and expensive) repair charges for a large component. I knew instantly that they were seeing more repairs for that component than average, but the question was why. It turned out that the repair shop sending the bills was improperly charging for a complete element repair versus what should have been a charge for repairing a component of that element. That finding alone enabled the company to recoup more than $50K.

Taking a deeper look at repair costs can transform fleet management from reactive to proactive. By leveraging insights from fleet-wide data, managers can anticipate maintenance needs, reduce downtime, and optimize spending to ensure every dollar spent on repairs adds real value. It may even open the door to redesigning your fleet maintenance strategy and tactics.