Vehicle maintenance in Europe, “Past-present-future”

Maintenance as a task has been present in the life of humanity since machines, tools, equipment, and eventually vehicles appeared to help with work. The principles, tasks, and strategies related to maintenance have been undergone significant changes over the years, driven, on the one hand, by technological development and, on the other hand, by reliability expectations for the tools used. In this article, this path is intended to be presented, covering the specificities of the equipment present in the field of transport. Light is also intended to be shed on how the role of maintenance organisations in the process has changed/is changing, and what challenges are being faced by the "profession" in this area. In this work, the current directions and development possibilities are presented. In addition to all this, the organisational framework within which vehicle maintenance tasks are carried out is not neutral, since many solutions have been developed in this area as well, which can yield different results for railway companies. Keywords: traffic; railway vehicle; vehicle maintenance; maintenance organization; strategies