Technical Meetings are held three times per year.
Papers are available here for download.
You must be logged in to be able to download content.
Bin Zhu & Licai Fang In this paper, we describe the optimised digital platform used for Testing and Commissioning (T&C) activities, which overcomes some common challenges arising from communication-oriented freight and passenger rail projects. This optimised digital platform provides a flexible approach by allowing its customisation into a project-specific product in a short time. It has proved to be extremely helpful in terms of planning, execution, reporting and training for Hitachi Rail’s T&C team. By freely sharing customisation processes, case studies and lessons learnt about this digital platform on Australian projects, this paper provides a valuable underpinning for similar applications in the very near future in Australia.
Shaun Kindleysides This paper provides a background and overview of the NTCS, outlines the key technologies that underpin the NTCS and describes the complexities, logistics, governance and decision-making principles that are driving the team toward a full deployment of 4GX communications by June 2024 via the NTCS Technology Refresh Project.
Jane Copperthwaite This paper concludes the theme for Andy Knight’s year as president and in part provides a response to the first paper of his year “Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: a British Female Perspective”.
One of the key advantages that rail transportation has over its road-based competitors is that of driver efficiency. Typically a train will need less drivers to get from A to B for a given load (be it humans or freight) compared to the number of road vehicles required to transport the same load. However, there is an emerging risk that this significant railvs- road advantage is about to be eroded. Huge amounts of R&D spending has been invested globally over the last 5-10 years in the pursuit of self-driving cars and trucks. Will this become a serious threat to rail’s competitiveness? Currently nobody has yet cracked the full self-driving problem for road vehicles but given the number of companies who have bet vast sums of their money that it is possible, it would be arguably unwise to assume their goal will not be reached in at least the medium term. This paper looks at some of the problems still facing our tarmac-based competition and whether these same issues also apply to rail if we (the rail industry) were to try and proceed to driverless trainsacross most rail operations in a similar timeframe. Ultimately this paper asks the question: are we proceeding fast enough to a future where most trains can be operated without a driver?.
The benefits in using standardised designs for signalling installations have long been recognised. As technology advances, so too have the methods and opportunities available to utilise these efficiencies. Throughout the history of signalling, various levels and methods of standardised design have been deployed:• Mechanical interlockings using a standard lever and locking layouts;• Electro-mechanical systems with geographic modules and typical circuits;• Computer-Based Interlockings (CBIs) with built-in sub-routines and background functions. In each instance, both benefits and impediments arose. Within the Processor-Based Interlocking (PBI) era, there has been a drift towards the provision of “rule sets”, which are closed to the signal designer; however, provide consistency and efficiency. Rule sets may be locked to a particular PBI, however, may also take the form of a specification which can be applied on many processor-based platforms. Key considerations, therefore, include requirements definition, validation, traceability, security and documentation. This paper explores the options, considerations and benefits available in developing and using reusable and backgroundcode in modern signalling systems.
This paper delivers a process of changing the signalling system of an operating railway (a brownfield resignalling project) whilst maintaining resilience during the difficult period of change (the transition period). Conventional resignalling projects have traditionally included a transition state. This would typically involve new signals being erected in advance of the changeover weekend and covered with a hood and a white cross, and pre-installing wiring at interfaces. As signalling technology has moved onto the train, the changes required when replacing signalling technology have become more complicated. The number of players interacting with the signalling system has increased, and the commercial arrangements between those players has become more complex. The result of this is that the ability to change the whole system over one weekend has reduced. There are only two solutions to this challenge: one solution is to introduce a significant closure of the whole system (typically three months or more); the alternative is to break the change into a number of steps, each of which is manageable over a weekend. This introduces temporary operating states (Transition States) between the current state and the final state but reduces the overall project transition risk. This paper explains in further detail the need for such Transition States, and discusses the three different changeover methods. It concludes that change should be introduced in as few complex stages as possible, and that each stage should carry project risk that is just less than the maximum risk that the railway organisation is prepared to accept.
The November 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake was the largest disaster to ever strike New Zealand’s railway in terms of amount of damage. Large parts of the Main North Line (MNL) Railway were engulfed in huge slips or thrown into the sea. Bridges were destroyed and tunnels broken. The damage to the railway and State Highways disconnected New Zealand’s transport system. The subsequent response and rebuild has challenged not just KiwiRail but New Zealand’s construction industry overall. It has resulted in the biggest rail project in the South Island of New Zealand since the Second World War. As part of that project, the need for considering resilience has had to be faced. How this would be defined, the analysis undertaken to quantify it and the work done to achieve it are part of this paper. Some of the resilience factors considered are of international significance. These factors include analysis of tolerance to seismic and storm events as well as matching with required levels of service. This paper will also outline some of the internationally award-winning works that have been undertaken on the railway to achieve reopening the line in only 10 months after the earthquake, despite been hit by several tropical cyclones during the reinstatement works. Improvements to service levels are also addressed.
Applications of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) in Railways are becoming more and more frequent. So far, the focus has been on non-safety related applications, such as passenger information systems and freight logistics,which are typically also not standardised. When moving GNSS applications into the domain of safety, such as for train control systems, a much better understanding of GNSS behaviour is needed. This is especially true for standardised applications, such as within the EuropeanRailway Traffic Management System (ERTMS), where the performance and behaviour of GNSS receivers and other components of a GNSS solution will have to be harmonised to achieve standardised, guaranteed performance and thusinteroperability between on-board units of different suppliers, similar to GNSS based landings in aviation. Many research projects have already investigated the use of GNSS in safety critical railway applications, such as GALOROI, GRAIL, NGTC, ERSAT to just name a few. These projects had varying goals, from building a simple demonstratorto defining possible architectures. None of them has however attempted to qualify the railway environment regarding impacts on the GNSS performance. For that reason, the STARS project (Satellite Technology for AdvancedRailway Signalling) was proposed to GSA, the European GNSS Agency. The STARS consortium included the major European signalling manufacturers, space industry and research centres. This paper describes the project objectives,the setup and the results of that project.
With an aging signal asset and increasing capital works program the KiwiRail team have been pushed to increase deliveryand reduce timeframes. In order to meet the increased capital and renewals programs, the engineering team have beenworking on the development of standard base designs to improve procurement plans, standardise equipment and reduceend to end project delivery time.
A recap on the Younger Members event which was held prior to the July Technical Conference in Ballarat Victoria.
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.