Patent ID: 7565331

Claim:
A method of assessing the cost of service disruptions in a fleet of transportation vehicles, such as aircraft, comprising the computer implemented steps of: (A) determining a cause of each of the disruptions; (B) determining a duration of each of the disruptions related to a respective cause; (C) determining the number of disruptions related to a respective causes occurring during each of a plurality of graduated time intervals comprising said duration, each of said time intervals associated with a specifically determined cost per said time interval for each of said disruptions; and, (D) determining an accumulated cost of the service disruptions said accumulated cost determined by accumulating a cost over each of said plurality of time intervals, said accumulated cost comprising a non-linear relationship with respect to said duration of a respective disruption, said non-linear relationship determining an actual cost per unit time for a respective disruption, wherein said determining said accumulated cost comprises accumulating an averaged single event cost, said averaged single event cost determined by averaging costs over all of said disruptions comprising a respective time interval wherein said non-linear relationship determines an actual cost per unit time for said single event; (E) assigning expense factors respectively for disruptions resulting from each of the causes determined in step (A); and, (F) determining an average cost for each disruption over a respective time interval using said respective expense factor.