PRASA
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Previous Projects


The following undergraduate research projects were carried out by the Chair between 2011 and 2020. If you require any of the Executive Summaries or wish to know more about any of these topics, please contact us via e-mail.

Industrial Engineering Projects

  1. Principles and Practices of Energy Calculations and Energy Management in Maintenance
  2. Quantification and evaluation of customer travelling experience using quality management tools
  3. Scheduling Optimisation in a Maintenance Environment
  4. The Measurement of Labour Productivity in a Maintenance Environment 
  5. Business Process Re-engineering of a Planning Office Facility in a Rolling Stock Maintenance Environment.
  6. Facilities Planning of a Rolling Stock General Overhaul Facility
  7. Implementation of Mission-Directed Work Teams in a Maintenance Environment
  8. Investigation into Problem-solving Methodologies in an Engineering Environment
  9. The Implementation of 5S in a maintenance environment
  10. Business Process Analysis of Railway Rolling Stock Supply Chains by using Lean Thinking Principles
  11. Facilities Planning and Layout Design of a Railway Station
  12. Process Improvement Strategies in Maintenance to Improve Productivity
  13. The development of a computerised train scheduling system
  14. Business Process Improvement of Scheduled Maintenance Activities in Rolling Stock Maintenance
  15. Decision support systems to improve financial management in a maintenance environment
  16. Managing change and renewal of existing management systems in rail
  17. Facility Layout Improvement in Rail Rolling Stock Maintenance 
  18. Comparison of Traditional Project Management (TPM) with Agile Project Management (APM) and Risk Management for use on small-sized projects in the PRASA environment
  19. Optimising ventilation of passenger coaches in the rail environment
  20. Reliability modelling of a motor coach in the rail environment
  21. Investigation into the impact of support services on maintenance activities in a rail environment.
  22. The development of a suitable model for occupational safety systems in a rail maintenance environment
  23. Investigation into the possible hotspots and patterns of vandalism and theft of railway infrastructure in order to reduce disruptions in operational and maintenance schedules
  24. Business Process Reengineering of the Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Process of Rolling Stock at Cape Metrorail and the Salt River Maintenance Depot
  25. Improving Response Time for Corrective Maintenance for Rail Infrastructure
  26. An integrated vandalism and theft analysis for Rolling Stock
  27. The Application of Process Planning methods and software in a Rail Maintenance Environment
  28. The Redesign of the Layout of a Component Shop in the Rail Maintenance Environment
  29. Adaptation of the Stellenbosch Learning Factory into a learning factory maintenance system
  30. Development of a reliability improvement model for train sets in the rail environment
  31. A proposed framework to be used in choosing simulation packages for transport exchange modes: Simio and Anylogic are considered
  32. A Decision Support Framework for Outsourcing the Maintenance of Physical Assets: A case study of Rolling Stock Rotating Machines
  33. Front-line supervisor effectiveness assessment in an engineering shop-floor
  34. Equipment Replacement Analysis in terms of Life Cycle Costing of Energy Intensive Equipment within the Maintenance Environment
  35. Investigation of a Supply Chain Decision Model for the Allocation of Vandalised Rolling Stock
  36. The application of reality technology in learning factory maintenance: a case study of rail rolling stock
  37.  An Industry 4.0 maintenance roadmap for railway assets
  38. Facility layout planning of a component refurbishment facility
  39. Scheduling methods in a Rail maintenance environment
  40. Design, planning and testing of a board game that can be used for teaching rail awareness to rural communities
  41. Improving Response Time for Corrective Maintenance for Rail Infrastructure
  42. The Contribution of Maintenance towards Reliability Improvement
  43. An investigation into the financial requirements of technology transfer in railways
  44. Simulation of Real World Railway Operations using a Model Train Scenario
  45. Investigation into the use of reality technology for inspection and fault finding
  46. Sequencing of maintenance tasks to optimise resources
  47. Economic risk analysis to protect assets
  48. The application of digitisation to blend maintenance with the 4th industrial revolution
  49. Investigate and design a scheduling model to improve the scheduling of trains, coaches and passenger loads for railway operations
  50. Investigation into the feasibility of creating eco-friendly railway systems in Southern Africa
  51. Investigation into the impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution on Human Resources in the Rail Environment
  52. An efficient schedule for long distance train service in South Africa
  53. Investigation into an applicable timetabling software for metro rail service in South Africa
  54. Development of a rail rolling stock health index 
  55.  A railway network analysis of the City of Cape Town’s Integrated Public Transport Network Plan 2032
  56. Analysis of TrainTracer geo-referenced data for rail infrastructure maintenance improvement
  57. A feasibility study for renewable photovoltaic technology interventions for railway vehicles
Mechanical Engineering Projects
  1. Investigate wheel wear in the rail environment
  2. Investigate coil swelling of traction motors in the Rail environment
  3. Development of passenger counting system for the passenger rail environment
  4. Develop a method to calibrate a rail wheel profile measuring instrument
  5. Investigation of flameproof materials for passenger coaches
  6. Develop a portable method to measure rail wheel profiles using a 3D camera
  7. Simulation of the brake system operation of a 5M/10M train
  8. Development of a Passenger Counting System for the Train Transport Industry (Iteration 2)
  9. Investigation of coil swelling of traction motors in the rail environment
  10. Optimization of Finite Element Analysis for Rail wheels
  11. Investigation into the effect of normal and excessive braking on PRASA train wheels
  12. Investigation into the stress relaxation and creep experienced during excessive braking on PRASA train wheels
  13. Commercialising of the spring tester to accommodate more spring types and snubbers
  14. The use of vibration in railway condition monitoring 
  15. Development of a passenger counting system for the passenger rail environment (Iteration 3)
  16. Investigation and upgrading of the 5M Motor Coach vacuum braking system to the modern compressed air operated disk brakes
  17. Design of tools and methods to remove parts from the armature shafts of traction motors
  18. The design of a safe hauling system for 8M train sets
  19. The adaption of a coil winding machine
  20.  Development of a passenger counting system incorporating facial recognition for the passenger rail environment (Iteration 4)
  21. Development of passenger counting system for the passenger rail environment  (Iteration 5)
  22. Investigate wheel wear in the rail environment (Iteration 2)
  23. An investigation into the railway points machine to optimise operational functionality
  24. Development of a passenger counting system for the passenger rail environment (Iteration 6)
  25. Preliminary investigation into alternative materials for train wheels and rails
  26. Improvements to the spring testing jig
  27. Development of a passenger counting system for the passenger rail environment  (Iteration 7)
  28. The design of a repair workstation for a railway traction motor
Civil Engineering Projects
  1. Modular pedestrian bridges
  2. Evaluation of a new rail service between Cape Town CBD, Dunoon and Atlantis
  3. Study of the Metrorail Business Express trains in Cape Town
  4. Accessible pedestrian bridges: useful or painful?
Electrical​ Engineering Projects
  1. A Systematic Approach to Energy Saving in a Maintenance Environment
  2. Maintenance management to improve peak energy demand
  3. Investigating Possible Causes of Flash overs in the HT bay of the 5M2A trainsets
  4. Early warning tampering system for overhead rail lines​