Technical Meetings are held three times per year.
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Nathan Loriente This paper discusses the strong points & areas of improvement for the signalling industry in Australasia, as perceived by this Track & Civil specialist. As a Track & Civil Railway Engineer working deeply within the Signalling world it has been a rare opportunity to understand in depth the railway system as a whole, and how railway operators can more effectively plan their maintenance & renewals to achieve best-for-business track & signalling outcomes. The paper touches on several areas from the point of view of a Track & Civil Engineer including:
Katherine Eastaughffe & Gary Foster This paper provides an overview of the Australian development of an innovative low-cost solution for the provision of active signage at rural and regional level crossings. The development fundamentally sought to achieve low cost without impacting safety.
H Zhu, H Li, A Al-Juboori, D Wexler, C Lu, A McCusker, J McLeod, S Pannila & J Barnes A comprehensive approach has been implemented in Sydney Trains railway network to control and minimize the rail degradation, especially squat defects. The popularity and severity of rail degradation were analysed, followed by the evaluation of different techniques in rail surface crack measurement. A detailed metallurgical examination on the ex serviced rails was carried out to understand the mechanics of squat initiation and growth, and correlation between squat and presence of white etching layer on rail surface. The finite element modelling was introduced to investigate the wheel-rail contact with the consideration of white etching layer. A two-step of rail grinding strategy was proposed and commissioned.
Richard Roberts Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) is established with many suppliers providing systems compliant to international CBTC standards. The key principles are familiar to railway signalling and control engineers. CBTC is operated by several railway authorities across the globe. With such a well-established, widely available system with international standards how much difference can there be? In fact quite a lot, perhaps no great surprise considering the similar variety which has developed in signalling and control in general. This papers sets out to explore the differences and similarities in CBTC solutions: a) Across system implementation; how it works b) Across operational implementation; how it is used c) In comparison to conventional signalling
Zdenka Wright In an age of ever increasing capacity demands and increased operational time pressures, so too we see an increased risk of Category ‘A’ SPADs associated with traditional lineside signalling systems such as in the Melbourne metropolitan network.
Neil Popplewell Safe communication of information between railway signalling systems has always been an essential part of signalling system design. This has primarily been driven by the need to safely and accurately communicate the state of the railway to the various subsystems and end users of the system, over typically very large geographical distances imposed by the topology of railway networks.
Hugh Hunter We have all suffered railway services being delayed or cancelled, and read about railway systems and operational services being criticised for being unreliable. In his paper, Alex Landex [1] states that delays in a railway network are one of the biggest problems in the daily operation of a railway company, and to deal with this issue attention to transit efficiency and reliability is increasing.
Robert Baird and Alistair McWhirter Most CBTC implementations are typically on high throughput metros or rapid transit lines where an at grade road rail interface (level crossing) would not be appropriate. The methodology and treatment of level crossing protection under CBTC is therefore not considered to be the norm and would generally be treated as a bespoke add on to CBTC core functionality customised to the rules and the requirements of the specific railway.
Peter Burns The train queue in its most familiar form – the timetable – has been around since the dawn of railways. From time to time rail authorities have sought to use it as the basis for their safeworking systems. This occurred even in NSW up till the late nineteenth century.
Ian Hume This paper examines the development of the SigView Train Control System (TCS) that has been deployed for VLine under the Regional Rail Link (RRL) Project.
In this paper, we would like to introduce an innovative proposal based on the research conducted by the Hitachi Rail Innovation team to further improve the existing available tablet application, particularly
This Paper investigates the issues regarding use of passive level crossings for livestock movements in the agricultural industry. This unavoidable practice presents a different risk profile to the typical user, with livestock movement being
I started in signalling more than 30 years ago at British Rail, where I learnt how to design interlockings, initially in relay circuits, and then by programming Solid State Interlockings. This work sparked my interest in safety critical syste
The term signalling principles is often referenced with regards to the design of a signalling system. It is also used as part of the title of a person ‘Principles Verifier’ or ‘Principles Tester’. Some rail managers also reference signalling p
This paper offers a detailed FRMCS integrated migration strategy as a preparatory guide for current GSM-R users, particularly Rail Transport Operators (RTOs), as well as for projects in the planning and developmen
The Public Transport Authority of Western Australia (PTA) is currently building a new mobile radio and backhaul transmission communications network across the Perth metropolitan electrified railway network.
Today’s railway fatalities are arguably more likely to occur at level crossings than in the train collisions we tend to focus most attention on controlling. Designing for level crossing safety can be messy and grey, especially when the dependen
The Netherlands is rolling out the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) across the national network. The government created a Programme Directorate to manage the rollout. Cyber security for both ERTMS as well as the transportation syst
To support the acceptance of safety risk for configuration changes to railways, systems engineering recognises both qualitative and quantitative hazard and risk assessment methods. Quantitative analysis can be perceived as objective and quali
Cybersecurity is a hot topic worldwide with regular attacks being performed against multiple domains.