‘Challenging’, ‘innovation’, ‘collaboration’, ‘net zero’
These were all terms regularly referred to throughout the Rail Industry Association’s (RIA) SigEx 2024 Control, Command and Signalling (CCS) exhibition and conference which was held last November. The event attracted over 250 experienced professionals who were there to watch an impressive line-up of speakers and visit 30 interesting exhibition stands.
RIA’s SigEx is for those working across the supply chain, clients, and government organisations. It provided a mix of formal conference activities and exhibitions, together with informal networking opportunities in a large exhibition area. The prestigious speakers included Martin Jones, chief engineer, Network Rail; Colin McVea, professional head of signalling & telecoms, Translink in Northern Ireland; and Tom Hardwick, head of system development Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive (Nexus). Each gave a fascinating overview of the challenges and opportunities involved with the asset management of busy railways.
Control Period challenge
Martin Jones is responsible for technical strategy for all engineering disciplines at Network Rail and is an experienced signal engineer. He was therefore ideally placed to present at SigEx 2024. He explained where Network Rail is with its Control Period (CP) 7 (2024 to 2029) delivery, the challenges faced, and the opportunities CP7 will create.
CP7 funding is approximately 75% of what Network Rail needs to maintain asset life – the same as at the start of the control period. So, throughout CP7 asset life will decline and it will be a huge challenge to keep assets safe and performing reliably.
Safety, in terms of train accident risk, is very dynamic in the area of earthworks which is linked to extreme weather events. So, another challenge is to keep these assets safe during the extreme weather events we are experiencing. Objects on the line (some caused by extreme weather), rail adhesion, and Signal Passed at Danger (SPADS) are other challenging asset management issues. Some of the SPAD risk is created by trees growing rapidly and obscuring signal aspects.
The challenge, in summary, is how can the assets be kept going when the base life is declining? How can the asset base be kept safe and how can things be made more affordable? The ideal fix would be to deliver renewals and interventions more cost effectively and renew more volume of assets using the available budget.
Opportunity
The opportunity, however, said Martin, is to innovate rapidly to meet these challenges. There is a strong case to make radical changes as the industry can’t afford to deliver engineering as it did before. In many past cases renewing assets in large volumes has removed problems but, if this is not possible, other novel, radical, and innovative engineering methods will be required to keep assets safe and performing to specification.
Martin confirmed that in CP7 there is a substantial Research and Development (R&D) programme of £150 million, with much of this allocated to CCS, so where assets are renewed, they need to be replaced with better performing assets. This is already happening with, for example, switch and crossing renewals.
Much of the way the railway will move forward is documented in The Rail Technical Strategy (RTS). This sets the direction for the development and uptake of existing and new solutions that are essential for industry to deliver against the challenges, and Martin recommended everyone reads the RTS. Alignment and collaboration will become very important as the industry moves towards Great British Railways (GBR), and Martin added that we will hear the word ‘collaboration’ a lot in the next year or so.
R&D will not just be focused on new assets – it will also look at how older assets are inspected and maintained. For many assets, the traditional inspection regime is based on sending people out to inspect the assets, particularly for structures. This is moving to inspection via drones, trains, and camera-based technology with built in AI detection. This is proving to be far more reliable and consistent than inspection by a person, as people assess things subjectively compared to an algorithm. Inspection via drone also uses far less valuable track access time. Track ‘robots’ are also being developed to undertake for example S&C inspections to increase both consistency and the volume of inspections.
Innovative creative techniques will be required to target where interventions need to be focused. As well as earthwork failure risk due to weather extremes, there are lots of dead and dying trees which could fall on a railway line. Two options are already being trialled to identify these and Martin encouraged anyone in the supply chain to suggest solutions to keep things safe and performing reliably.
Signalling
When it comes to signalling, ETCS has to be made more affordable via the Target 190 programme. This has the aim of reducing the whole life cost of signalling from a unit rate of £419,000 to £190,000 by 2029 to enable the ETCS Long Term Deployment Plan to be achieved. The programme objectives are to reduce costs, improve reliability, and increase safety by automating signalling design processes, standardising system architectures, implementing faster renewals planning, and introducing offsite testing and validation processes.
For conventional signalling, the obsolescence of components and subsystems is often the problem which drives the need for wholescale resignalling. Therefore R&D will also need to provide solutions for the like-for-like replacement of obsolete items. This is already happening with, for example, the development of a replacement Solid State Interlocking (SSI) Trackside Functional Module (TFM), and there will be many other examples of innovative solutions required to avoid renewing all the assets within a signalling system.
Martin completed his presentation by saying that the supply chain needs to challenge Network Rail more as, very often, suppliers know best. He says there is a standards challenge process if an over prescriptive standard is stifling innovation and, if necessary, he can be contacted directly to assist. However, the most important thing is that everything is done safely.
Translink
Colin McVea opened his presentation by saying that the Translink network is very small, at less than 300 miles, but that his problems were exactly the same as Martin’s. He added that his experience with innovation was mixed, with some very good and others not so good. However, Colin believes that innovation and doing things differently is the way forward.
His first experience with innovation in signalling was introducing the retrofit LED Light Engine replacement for filament lamps in signals. This provided all of the reliability and long-life benefits of LEDs without the requirement to change the complete signal, thus significantly reducing costs. There were some difficulties, but Colin worked with the supplier to resolve these satisfactorily. Another example was successfully retro fitting a roller bearer assembly to a set of points which remote condition monitor had identified a large current draw to swing the switch. He added not to underestimate the effort required to introduce innovation and that there needs to be top-down support throughout the organisation to gain the benefits.
Colin’s main challenge is to keep aging assets working safely and reliably, and some assets in Translink are so fragile that they can’t be touched. The key is to identify what is going to fail before it does, and do this safely at minimal cost. Translink attended last year’s Rail Live exhibition and Colin was very impressed with the range of devices on display to monitor and report asset condition.
When connecting devices together, cyber security is a new challenge which must be addressed and is another area where supplier innovation will be welcome. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is key to obtaining useful information from huge amounts of sensor data, but he stressed that we must also not overlook ‘EI’, or Engineer’s Intelligence! A good engineer on the ground will always be important to make the right decisions.
Rail is already a low-emission mode of transport and, although it is already one of the most sustainable forms of mass transit, there is still much more that can be achieved through careful management of assets and activities. Suppliers will therefore need to demonstrate their contribution to sustainability and lower carbon emissions, Colin said. Suppliers were also warned not to oversell the benefits of their innovation. What may work on a bench may not work the same on an operational railway.
Colin concluded his presentation by reaffirming that Translink is very open to new innovations and creative engineering in order to maintain safety and asset performance.
Nexus
The Tyne and Wear Metro is an overground and underground light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland. The system is owned and operated by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive (Nexus) under public ownership and operation.
Tom Hardwick explained his two projects to re-signal the metro and extend the network to Washington. Tyne and Wear Metro is a vertically integrated railway of a route length of 56km with 48 stations and 46 trains. The signalling is Route Relay Interlocking (RRI) in 12 relay rooms, with 90 locations operating DC track circuits, three aspect signals and 151 sets of points, delivering three-minute headways. There are also five open automatic level crossings with no barriers, as the frequency of metro services would make the crossings impractical in the busy city centre. The trains are ‘on the heavy side’ of light rail, but they are provided with emergency magnetic track brakes which can stop trains in 250 metres.
The case for change and a new signalling system is driven by three things:
- Asset performance – as all other assets have been renewed, so signalling is the biggest cause of train delay on the network.
- Obsolescence – it is difficult to source relays to change or expand the network.
- Competency – staff with the required maintenance competency are no longer available.
- The business case for renewal is a strong one, with a Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) of five, Tom explained. Nexus is looking to appoint a technical consultant in the next two years and a main contractor in 2028.
Net zero
Other presentations included Amey and Sella controls explaining their COTS PLC Hima SIL 4 signalling solution to reduce the cost and complexity of signalling. This was a great example of how the industry can do things differently, as requested by the three infrastructure managers. Amey and Sella explained two of their systems already in use. One at Taffs Well in South Wales for a complex fully signalled metro train depot, and the other a mainline railway level crossing full barrier system for Magdalen LC in Norfolk.
Lynsey Hunter presented on Scotland’s signalling future and described the need for a robust train control strategy to deliver the five priorities for rail in Scotland:
- Maintain or improve safety.
- Reduce cost, and deliver best value.
- Tackle climate change – by delivering rails contribution to net zero emissions.
- Run a reliable railway.
- Train and track to work together to deliver best value.
Carbon reduction and net zero featured again in the final and very interesting presentation of the day by Gary Joynes, principal engineering leader at Transport for London (TfL). Gary discussed the importance and relevance of carbon reduction at TfL and showed data detailing the organisation’s carbon ‘hotspots’. Cable and cable containment make up 67% of the total TfL signalling carbon footprint, with radio assets being 16%, and all other asset groups in single figures.
Even more concerning, the data showed that the earlier Transmission Based Train Control (TBTC) signalling systems contain 18% less carbon than the more modern Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) signalling systems. This was a surprise and shock to many in the room. The increase was attributed partly to the increased use of fibre cables and concrete troughing. Fibre cables use more carbon than traditional copper cables he said. While this may be the case, fibre cables can carry a huge amount of data compared to copper cables, and they are immune from electromagnetic interference.
Rail is a relatively carbon ‘friendly’ mode of transport, but nevertheless, the point was well made, and pennies do make pounds. Gary said that suppliers must factor the findings into their R&D, and that net zero and sustainability will need to be demonstrated in all future TfL projects. This is something that everyone in rail needs to take on board.
Exhibitors at SigEx 2024 included:
- Aarvee Associates
- Amey
- Cembre
- Complete Cyber
- Ebeni
- DMS (Data Management) Ltd
- Dual Inventive
- Enable My Team
- Findlay Irvine
- Firstco
- Frauscher
- The Formal Route
- Fujikura
- Ibstock (Anderton Concrete)
- Institution of Railway Signal Engineers
- iLECSYS
- KONUX
- Mallatite
- Network Rail
- Omincom Balfour Beatty
- Prover
- Phoenix Contact
- Pandrol
- Rail Sense
- Schweizer Electronic
- Sella Controls
- SOFTECH Rail
- Staytite
- Trough-Tec Systems
- Unipart Rail
- Universal Signalling
- WAGO
Image credit: RIA